The next morning we were all up early, I could tell that the older boys knew that something was up but they didn't ask. Of the three of them only Tyler was relaxed and when I say that I don't mean that he was smiling and happy, I mean that he knew that his days of being hurt were over. Dee even looked better, I guess relieved would be a better word for it. She didn't say much as we got ready to go to the house; this was a very different Dee than the one I knew. I imagined that she didn't sleep well as she replayed the events of the prior day in her mind.
Marshall drove Dee's minivan with the boys and the rest of us rode in the truck followed by the minivan. An hour and a half later, we were back at the house. I got out and walked around, it seemed like a lifetime ago since I'd lived here and was plain old Allie Walker rescuer of the occasional hiker and a woman with truly wild fantasies that had come true.
There were so many good memories here and I missed my house, I just didn't realize how much until now. I handed the keys to Matt who unlocked the door but wouldn't let any of the women and kids go in until he and the others checked it out. Afterwards, they ran off to the back of the house, changed and ran through the woods marking the area and checking for danger.
The boys were already unloading the van without being told to confirming my belief that they knew that something had happened and was still happening. Without being told, Cecil Jr. And David took charge of Tyler without complaint even letting him help unload the van without the comments about him being too small. They knew.
During the ride up, Matt and the rest of us decided that the boys were much too know young to know or understand why and how I could be married to five men so we wouldn't tell them. If they came to visit we would have to be careful and make sure that they never saw anyone other than Matt coming out of our bedroom. Matt was wondering about the feasibility of making the rooms on either side of our room adjoining rooms. That would completely eliminate the chance that one of the others wasn't caught coming out or going into our room in the middle of the night. I suggested that we keep their rooms in the basement since they liked it down there and Dee was no longer an issue. The truth of it was I was tired of the racket of construction and wanted quiet for awhile, before too long the house would be filled with the sounds of crying babies.
I suddenly realized that we were talking like Dee and the boys wouldn't be going back to California and that this was a very premature discussion. Everything had happened so quickly that we didn't know what was going to happen and hadn't talked about it. The boys were in what would be their rooms while Dee was in my old room unpacking. My heart stopped as I realized that I still had some toys in the bedside table. While Dee and I were close we never talked about sex at least not much and I had no idea of how she was going to react when she saw the toys.
I didn't know how to get them out without her seeing me or them so I decided to come clean.
"Umm Dee, I don't know how to tell you this it's kind of well..."
Dee stopped what she was doing and looked at me expectantly. It then dawned on me that she already thought that I was a freak so what was a little more?
"In the top drawer, there are toys...sex toys." I said and then waited for her response.
There was a long hesitation and then she said, "So are there batteries?"
It was my turn to do the fish gasping for air thing. Dee and sex toys? I had to wonder what Cecil had thought about that.
"Close your mouth Allie." Dee said with a chuckle. "How naïve do you think I am? You up here alone most of the time and no men?"
I snapped my mouth shut and opened it again only it was to speak.
"You're not surprised?" I asked.
"No, I'm not surprised especially since finding out that you sleep with five guys who happen to be brothers and wolves to boot. So how does that work?" she asked.
I was so not about to discuss my love life with Dee even if she was my cousin but she wouldn't let it go.
"Do you all sleep together or do they take turns sleeping with you?" she asked. "And how does the whole wolf thing work?" she asked.
"Alright, this is all the info I'm giving you." I said. "We all sleep together now drop it."
Her eyes widened as she realized that if we all slept together then we made love together as well. She was going to ask but I stopped her.
"None of your business." I said before she got the first syllable out. But I had questions for her.
"Dee, what happened? I thought that you and Cecil were so happy."
She didn't reply for a long time but when she did, her voice was tight as if she were struggling not to cry.
"We were at first, or I thought we were. Cecil was moving up in his company and didn't want children because he said that they were too expensive but when Cecil Jr. came along, he seemed genuinely happy and adjusted. When David came along, he wasn't as happy but once again he adjusted. Then he started staying late at work because of clients needing him and because of this deal or that. I wondered if we were in trouble financially and offered to get a job but he told me that all I needed to do was look pretty and raise the kids. I believed him and didn't ask again but he became more distant and started not coming home at all except to change his clothes and an occasional dinner.
I began to wonder if he was having an affair and asked him about it, of course he said no but I knew that he was lying but I couldn't prove it and what was I going to do even if I could? I had two babies and no job skills to speak of. That's what he meant when he made the comment about the housekeeping but Allie; I would have done it if it would have helped. But at any rate, we became for all practical purposes roommates. He didn't even notice when I moved out of our bedroom and into one of the spare ones."
I had no idea that things were that bad between them. As I said she always sounded so happy when we talked when the reality of it was that she was hurting just as badly as Tyler had been. I can't even begin to imagine living like that and was very thankful for my guys. But there was more.
"I heard him talking to her one night. The things he said to her, the things that he said that he wanted to do to her and what he wanted her to do to him...Allie it was like listening to a triple x movie. I didn't know that he could talk like that and the thing is, I would and could have done any and all of the things that he wanted her to so if he had just told me what he wanted. The whole time I had been thinking that I wasn't a good wife or that somehow I was repulsive to him but that wasn't it. I was the wrong color."
What in the hell was she talking about? According to Cecil blacks should only be with blacks and so on and so forth.
"Dee, what do you mean you're the wrong color? You're black and that's all that mattered to him." I said.
"The woman that he was seeing, she was white. I rented a car while the boys were at school and followed Cecil all day. The woman looked like a hooker the way that she was dressed, she had long blonde hair and oh god Allie, can you imagine how I felt?" she asked.
I was doing that fish thing again, but then I understood or at least I thought I did. In his mind, Cecil was getting back at the man by screwing a white woman because he felt screwed by the white man. Wow, talk about being screwed up and no, I hadn't the foggiest idea of how she must have felt.
"After I saw them together a second time, I filed for divorce and moved out taking the boys to my mother's while I looked for a place to live. I had enough money to support us for awhile if I was careful and found an apartment. It was a definite step-down from what we had but it would work, it had to work. While we were separated, I met this man who lived in the same complex. He was everything that Cecil wasn't, he was polite, kind, the kids liked him and he didn't treat me like an idiot. Cecil and I had been separated for four months before I slept with Jonas, I had no plans of reconciling with Cecil and it had been so long since I had been touched in that way that I threw caution to the wind. What I said about the condom was true, one of them was defective. Well any one day Cecil shows up full of apologies and proclamations of love and stupid me believed him.
He said that he was through with the other woman and begged for forgiveness and said that God had already forgiven him and like a fool, I went back. Jonas begged me not to go, he tried to warn me but I didn't listen. When I got home, we made what I thought was love once and Cecil never touched me again. A month later, I found out that I was pregnant with Tyler. I really did think that he was Cecil's but when he was born, Cecil wanted a paternity test and the rest you know."
Sweet Jesus, how had she remained sane? I wondered. No wonder she shed no real tears when Cecil ceased to exist.
"He threatened to take Cecil Jr. and David away if you left him didn't he?" I asked.
"I didn't know what to do! I couldn't leave them with him so that he could teach them how to hate! You saw what he was like. I thought about coming to you but Allie, I was ashamed. I was too afraid to tell you what was happening, and what would you have thought of me?" she asked tearfully.
"I would have told you to come, I would have thought that my cousin needed me and I would have done anything that I could to help you and my nephews." I said as I hugged her. "I wouldn't have judged you." I added kissing her cheek.
Dee pulled away from me and smiled sadly, "But I would have judged you. Maybe that's why I didn't call you and ask for help." she said.
"What about now knowing what you do about me and that my guys are wolves?" I asked.
Dee looked down and then back up at me, "I'm not going to lie, at first I thought that you were sick. What woman sleeps with five men who are brothers that aren't even human and is pregnant by one of them? Later, when they were getting ready to look for Cecil, when they didn't know I was watching, I saw how they looked at you. Allie they love you, all of them and I was jealous. All I ever wanted was for one man to look at me like that and you have five of them! So to answer your question, I don't think that you're sick but a very lucky woman. I'm still trying to wrap my head around the wolf thing though"
We stayed in my room talking until Paul called up saying that dinner was ready. Before we went downstairs, I took the used toys out of the drawer but left the unopened ones there. I had a feeling that Dee was going to need them for awhile.
Dinner was quiet with very little conversation happening. The guys cleaned up after telling the boys to be in the living room in an hour. I didn't know what Dee told them if anything but we were about to find out.
An hour later we were all in the living room with me sitting to Matt's left and Kevin on the other side of me. The other guys sat nearby but not so close as they were touching me. Dee sat on the loveseat while Tyler sat next to Marshall and the other boys sat on the floor in front of Dee.
"Ok guys, a lot has happened since you got here and unfortunately most of it isn't good. I don't know what your mom told you..."
"Dad's gone." Cecil Jr. interrupted.
