Once: A Collection of Sinfully Sexy and Twisted Tales Read online

  While I sipped my drink I thought about how I should’ve just married a man like that, a good man with far less ambition than Kip had, a man who would treat me well and spoil me with love rather than trot me about like a prized pony when he wasn’t flat-out ignoring me. A man who could be both friend and lover.

  Were there even men like that? I had no idea. My mother certainly hadn’t thought so, and she made damn sure I didn’t have any romantic notions rattling around in my foolish head. She’d been so proud when I married Kip.

  “Thank you,” I murmured to the bartender as I took the second drink and returned my empty glass. “I know you’re trying to pack up. I appreciate it.”

  “Happy to be of service, especially for a beautiful woman,” he replied cheerfully. “Enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  * * * *

  There was some tittering as I walked into the vast open area where last twenty or so people were gathered, but my eyes were on Kip. He was drunk - that was obvious - but there was something different about his smirk as he watched me walk toward him. It was predatory and leering, and I suddenly felt uncomfortable.

  “My beautiful wife,” he said a bit too loudly, and again there were snickers.

  “Hello, darling,” I ventured cautiously, not wanting to break his gaze. Some new energy crackled in the air, and it felt wholly unsafe. When he pulled me close to him, he was thrumming with excitement, and I could only imagine that he had some sort of announcement to share with me. Had he been promoted? He’d been hoping for that, and perhaps Bill Danforth had decided to tell him early rather than wait until the end of the month as he’d initially said.

  My husband’s arm snaked around my waist, pulling me so my back was to his front. I was surprised to feel him semi-erect as he held me close, but ambition did that to him. Even with all he’d had to drink, he was amorous with the promise of his boss’s favor.

  He spoke low, into my hair. “You’ve helped me so much by being here tonight. Bill is as impressed with you as always. And he’s going to show his appreciation of both of us.”

  “Oh?” I kept my voice neutral and quickly scanned the room, realizing there was something odd about the twenty-some people left but unable to put my finger on it.

  “Oh yes,” he breathed. “He is very, very appreciative, and so am I.”

  My eyes locked on Isaac’s, and I realized he was standing with Mrs. Kruger, her ample bosom smooshed against his side. Next to him stood another couple who’d arrived with different partners and were now openly fondling one another.

  Still, it didn’t sink in. I was half-drunk and unable to wrap my mind around what was happening until Bill Danforth jingled his keys.

  “You’re the last girl without a partner,” he said a bit too smoothly, “And I sure would be honored, Leila.” His eyes on me were beady and predatory, but his face was benign. Almost fatherly, in fact, which sent a shudder through me.

  “Bill will take good care of you,” my husband murmured into my ear, pressing lightly on my lower back. “And you know how much this promotion means to me.”

  I was the last woman without a partner, and all eyes were on me.

  It had to be a joke. But as I stared around the room, I realized it couldn’t be. It was too carefully rigged - no odd man out, an equal number of men and women, undesirable wives left behind. The thought of Sharon at home, reading, clueless that her lecherous husband had come to this party without her, made me physically ill.

  Dorothy sidled up beside us and closed her hand possessively around Kip’s free wrist, and I felt him back away from me, leaving me face to face with his married boss while he planned to go off under the same roof with his mistress.

  I turned and I tore out of the house and into the garden with both men calling my name. Even Dorothy joined in, which made me run faster. I knew that evil bitch had been part of this set-up. And how many others? Isaac? Sharon Danforth, even? I no longer knew anything. In a few short hours, the scrim of my perfect life had been yanked aside, leaving a horrible reality I wasn’t yet ready to face.

  There was a wooded area at the rear of the garden, and I dove into it without hesitation. It was pitch-black but for the glow of lights on the other side giving me some sense of direction as I crashed blindly through the undergrowth. Brambles and branches tore at my skin, bit my bare ankles, snagged on my dress, but I just kept going, breathless and tearful. My only goal was getting as far away from that house and those people as I could. I had no plan other than achieving distance, and I pushed myself through the pain and simply moved.

  Ahead of me the light shone brighter, and within seconds I was out on the street, racing downhill as fast as my shoes would allow. As I rounded the sharp curve, I saw a truck at the bottom of the hill and started calling to the driver.

  “Please!” I cried. “Wait, please.”

  The van was still at the stop sign when I reached the bottom, the interior light on as the driver rummaged for something in his glove compartment. Running up on the grass, toward the passenger door, I could hear loud music coming from the inside of the van. I grabbed for the handle.

  Locked.

  The driver jerked his head, staring in my direction. I realized it was the bartender, and he recognized me, too. He was clearly shocked to see me at the passenger window, thumping for his attention.

  “Please, please, let me in!” I cried over the throbbing bass line. “I was just at that party—.”

  With one hand he turned the radio off and with the other he reached for the door. “Jesus, what happened?” he asked, looking at me with horror as he swung the passenger door open for me. “Do I need to call the police?”

  I shook my head. “No. No police. Just get me out of here, please.”

  I was never so grateful to any human being in my life as I was to that bartender when he flipped off the dome light and threw the truck into drive without asking another question.

  In the passenger seat I tried to control my breathing, clutching the door handle with one hand and the seat with the other as he pulled onto the main highway and signaled for the interstate turn lane. Good. The interstate meant we could go fast and we would be far, far away from that madness in a matter of minutes.

  “I’m Wyatt,” he said quietly over the hum of the engine. “I’m happy to take you anywhere you want to go, I just need to know where that is. And I need you to put your seatbelt on, please.”

  “Leila,” I replied breathlessly, tugging the belt across my shoulder with trembling hands and fastening it. “And I have no idea where to go right now. I can’t go home. I just can’t.”

  He was silent for a moment before he suggested, “Is there a friend whose house I could take you to? Or do your parents live nearby?”

  I shook my head. “My parents are in another state,” I lied. “And I don’t really have friends here. We’re…uh…kind of new in town.” If a year and a half could qualify as “new.”

  He was silent again. “And you’re sure you don’t need the police?”

  I shook my head again.

  “Urgent care? You’re bleeding.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at myself and saw that I was shredded. My dress was ripped, my legs were crisscrossed with bright red scratches, and there was blood running down my arm. “It’s fine, just scratches. I ran through the woods.”

  He reached across my lap to the glove compartment and pulled out a wad of fast food napkins. “Here. I have a first aid kit, but it’s in the back, and I’m guessing you don’t want me to stop.”

  “I really don’t.” My voice shook. “Please just drive.”

  “I live in Fairfield, so I’m just going to head in that direction, okay? If you decide you want to go somewhere specific, just let me know and I’ll take you there.”

  “Fairfield is fine,” I mumbled. I didn’t have any other options.

  Wyatt was a good driver, pushing the speed limit but paying close attention to the road as he cruised along the far left lane with the fastest-moving
traffic. He was silent for a good ten miles before he ventured cautiously, “Um… you hungry? We could get something to eat.”

  At the thought of eating, my stomach roiled. And I realized I’d left my purse back at that house.

  “I don’t have any money, and I couldn’t eat right now if I had a gun to my head.”

  “Fair enough. Coffee?”

  That sounded excellent. “Coffee would be great,” I admitted.

  He nodded. “There’s a diner off the next exit, maybe fifteen miles. We could stop there. The coffee is amazing, and you might change your mind about the food once you smell the inside of that place. Their Belgian waffles…”

  His boyish enthusiasm for food made me smile in spite of myself. He was obviously hungry, and he was doing me a huge favor. The least I could do was stop for half an hour so he could eat. Where was I in such a hurry to go, anyway? I had no one. Wyatt was the closest thing I had to a friend on this night. “Sounds good,” I agreed.

  “Don’t worry about the money,” he assured me. “Even I can afford diner food for two.”

  “Thank you, I appreciate that.”

  He was quiet again for a few more moments before he spoke again. “Leila, you don’t have to answer this question if you don’t want to, but what happened to you back there?”

  I sighed. I might as well tell him. The events night burned in my chest, a fiery ball of shame and anger and fear. “Do you know what kind of party that was?”

  He shrugged. “I don’t pay much attention when I’m working. I go in, I set up, and I pour drinks.”

  “It was some kind of…swapping party.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Swapping,” I repeated. “Like, swapping partners.”

  He was quiet for a moment, and I knew when it finally sunk in, because he jerked the steering wheel a bit and coughed before answering in a strained voice, “And I take it you weren’t aware of that when you agreed to go?”

  “You are correct.”

  “Oh, shit.”

  “And furthermore, I’m pretty sure it was rigged. My husband’s boss…” The words sounded filthy even to my own ears, and I couldn’t finish.

  Wyatt was smart enough to read between the lines. “Are you fucking kidding me right now? Let me guess, there was a promotion involved?” He shook his head. “Jesus, I thought shit like that only happened on TV.”

  “There was a promotion involved, yes. Although it might also have been for his own amusement. I’m not sure.”

  “I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but that’s pretty fucked up, Leila.”

  “It is,” I sighed, turning my head and staring out the window. “It really, really is.”

  * * * *

  The sign for the Essex diner was missing the first “e,” which meant the blinking blue light promised “ssex,” but the Belgian waffles were better than any sex I’d ever had, hands-down. They were fluffy and golden, and I couldn’t help moaning with delight when I put the first forkful in my mouth.

  His eyes sparkled. “Amazing, right?”

  “Mmmm,” I agreed. I took a sip of rich coffee and made a mental note to come back to this place often. But panic set in again as I realized I had nothing. No place to stay, no money, not even my own driver’s license. I set my fork down, the temporary joy of the waffles spoiled by my harsh reality.

  “Best-kept secret in Essex,” Wyatt said, trying to keep things light. He’d noticed I had stopped eating. “Come on, eat up. Your night is already shitty, no sense depriving yourself of the best waffles in the world.”

  “In the world?” I laughed. “Have you actually traveled the world in search of the best waffles?”

  He shook his head and arranged another behemoth bite on his fork. “Don’t need to,” he said. “I know the best when it’s in front of me.”

  It was in his eyes, but he averted his gaze. It was in his body language, too, but he was trying to keep it neutral. And because he wasn’t pushing, because I was so used to commanding force and obeisance, and because Wyatt was the careful, respectful antithesis, I wondered what sex with him would be like and then promptly scolded myself for the thought. Was I so desperate for affection that I would latch on to any man who showed me the slightest kindness?

  He thought he’d made me uncomfortable with that tiny bit of flirtation, so he was quiet, tucking into his food and making polite small talk. He hadn’t scared me or made me feel uncomfortable in the least. In fact, the more respect he showed me, the more I yearned to know him better. I imagined we were just two normal people on a date. I studied his long lashes, the smattering of freckles on his cheeks and forehead, the tiny chip in the corner of his tooth. He had a long scar running the length of his pinky finger and I wondered about that, too. Was it a childhood injury, or was it more recent? Had his mother soothed him in the hospital, or had a lover held his good hand and whispered encouragement as the doctor stitched him?

  Somewhere in my curiosity he caught me looking, and a second of mutual understanding passed between us. “Did you decide where you want me to take you?” he asked softly, and the question was there, too.

  “Yes,” I said recklessly, when I should have been cautious. If I was wrong about my own husband, maybe I could be right about a complete stranger. The world was tilted on its axis, and I grasped at the first solid hold I had so I didn’t slip into oblivion. “Take me home with you.”

  * * * *

  Wyatt lived above a used bookstore in the heart of Fairfield, a little town I’d driven through a few times in another life. During the week the tiny main street bustled with foot traffic, mostly between the lawyer’s offices and the courthouse, but on Friday night the place became a ghost town. Now it was eerily quiet and poorly lit. He parked his van in the lot across the street and took my hand as he led me through an alley to a coded entry at the back of the store. It was a protective gesture that I missed when he let go of me and ushered me up the stairs.

  “So, this is it.” Wyatt gestured to the open loft space, carefully arranged into functional zones and decorated in a decidedly masculine aesthetic: battered leather furniture, framed posters, and some collectibles. One wall had built-in shelves crammed with books. The only enclosed room was the bathroom, which was partitioned off with glass bricks.

  He’d gotten visibly more nervous since I agreed to come back here with him, and I didn’t know how to put him at ease. I wasn’t Dorothy. I wasn’t a seductress. I just wanted to be touched by a good man, as though that would somehow cleanse me of my sins. But I didn’t know how to ask for something so important from someone I’d only just met.

  Wyatt did touch me, although not the way I wanted. He led me to the bathroom, invited me to sit on the toilet seat, and slid my shoes off, propping the soles of my aching feet on his thighs as he kneeled in front of me. With a warm washcloth, he carefully wiped the blood from the cuts and scratches along my legs. He said nothing as he did it, just wiped and rinsed the cloth in the sink behind him. It was unbearable tenderness that made the backs of my eyes prickly and my throat hot.

  When he was done he sat back on his heels and said, “Maybe I should’ve just asked if you wanted a shower.”

  A shower. A way to wash this awful night from my skin.

  “Yes, please,” I breathed, half hoping he would join me and wash me clean with his gentle hands. But instead he turned on the water and showed me where everything was, then left to give me some privacy.

  I shed my ripped dress and undergarments and stepped under the flow. Basking in the spray, I allowed it to cleanse me of the entire day up to the waffles. I wished it all away and let the water take it. When I heard Wyatt come back in with towels I thought of asking him to get in with me, but that was too forward. I didn’t have it in me, no matter how badly I wanted it.

  “I have a t-shirt and…uh…shorts you can wear,” he offered, averting his eyes when I came out in my towel. “I set them on my bed. I’ll just be making some coffee.”

  “But we just had coff
ee.” It was a dumb thing to say, but it was the first thought that popped into my head.

  “I would normally be in bed by now,” he confessed.

  “Oh. Right. I’m pretty tired myself. Why don’t we just skip the coffee and go to sleep? I’ll take the couch.”

  “That couch sucks,” he said emphatically. “I’ll take the couch and you take my bed.”

  “But that’s not fair, kicking you out of your own bed.”

  “Really, Leila, it’s okay.”

  “Just…” My face reddened as I choked out the words. “It’s a big bed. We can just stay on our own sides, right?”

  My words registered and he flushed as well. “If that’s okay with you, then yeah, that’s cool.”

  I changed in the bathroom, tying my wet hair in a braid so it wouldn’t tangle, and climbed between the sheets. After he turned out all the lights, he joined me, staying so far on his own side I wouldn’t have known he was even there except for the telltale breathing from what felt like a block away. I tried not to be disappointed. After all, this was how I fell asleep every night.

  I woke before the sun was fully up and felt the weight of his arm around me. For a minute I was disoriented, then slightly embarrassed as I realized where I was. But when Wyatt mumbled in his sleep and his breath tickled the back of my neck, I felt oddly comforted. Threading my fingers through his, I tucked our entwined hands against my cheek and fell back to sleep.

  When I woke again, this time on my back, our fingers had separated and his arm was now slung across my belly. But his bare leg was twined with mine, the coarse hairs on his calf tickling my skin. His face was buried in my neck, and I loved the unfamiliar intimacy of it. In all of our marriage, even in the early days, I had never woken to Kip’s body tangled with mine.

  Don’t break the spell, I pleaded. Don’t don’t don’t don’t. But as my eyelids fluttered open he slipped free, clearing his throat. I heard his bare feet thump softly on the floor.