Mason said the word ‘sexy,' and I felt like a turtle trying to put on a clown costume.
He brought me a two piece lacy little number and a sheer robe to go over it. I did my best to pull it together. Honestly, I had no clue what I was doing. The result was my reflection in the mirror looking better than I felt.
No, I didn’t want to wear the ridiculous ensemble, but if I was ever going to figure him out and find out what was going on, I couldn’t rebel every chance I got.
Using the banister to guide me, I slowly walked down the stairs. The strong aroma of hot food was in the air, making my mouth water. When was the last time I ate something?
Not seeing Mason in the foyer, I wandered into the dining room, but he wasn’t there either.
Figuring he would show up like he always seemed to do, I walked to the living room. The night I had tried to get away from him, I’d seen some of his paintings on the wall.
There were four of them, each on their own canvas. Two were done in darker colors, and two were abstract. They were grotesque and morbid, but at the same time intriguing and unique.
Just like Mason.
If I hadn’t known what his muse was behind them, I never would have suspected corpses. None of the paintings featured the room or the chair.
One of the abstracts had a woman missing her eyes, but her mouth had been sewn closed around one of them in the middle.
A darker painting had a man in it. His skin looked similar to an eroded penny, and his nose was missing. Without realizing what I was doing, I began tracing the outline of the frame. I could picture Mason taking his time to get the definition just right.
How did something like this manifest into a hobby? I wanted to be a violinist once, but I didn’t go around slicing people up for inspiration.
“What do you think?”
I jumped, pulling my hand back as if I’d been caught doing something wrong. Looking over at him leaning against the door frame, I felt my face flush.
He’d left me with a jumble of conflicted feelings and a body that ached for his touch. Seeing him again had them returning full force. I shifted on my feet, squeezing my thighs together. It was uncomfortable, to say the least. I had crotchless underwear on and could feel the heat gathering between my legs.
“They’re interesting,” I admitted honestly, looking away.
“Do you like them?” he questioned, coming to stand behind me, sliding his arms around my waist. I melted back into him like it was the most natural thing in the world.
“I do like them,” I answered quietly.
Five points for honesty.
“Are these all of them?”
“Katie-Kat, I’m thirty-two years old. There have been way more than just four.” He smiled against my neck, maneuvering me away from the wall.
He was thirty-two? That meant he had a good eleven years on me.
“How did you know what I did?” The question burst from my mouth like a balloon losing helium. Turning me around, he looked down at me as if debating how he wanted to respond.
“When I realized I couldn’t trust your mother, I put cameras in your house. I just happened to be around that night. I saw it on my phone.” He didn’t bat an eye after dropping that bomb. “It must have been fate for me to save your life.”
“There is so much wrong with everything you just said. Mostly that you know my mother. I thought you knew my dad.”
“Come with me. There’s something I need to show you.” He kept one arm around my waist, guiding me out of the room and down the back hall.
We walked into an office that sat all the way at the end; it was a room that had been locked shut the night before.
There was a large mahogany desk in the center of the room; a thick black leather chair sat behind it. Rows of dark shelves were built into the back wall. A leather sofa was directly across from it, and a large arched window made up one entire wall. I assumed it gave him a full view of his backyard.
“Sit here.” He walked me around the desk and sat me in his chair. I watched him fiddle with the computer mouse and pull up a white screen with various dates logged on a spreadsheet.
“Do you see these dates?” He dragged a little black cursor up and down the screen.
“Yes,” I answered, nodding.
“Do you see today’s date?” He pointed across the room to where a calendar hung on the wall, then moved his cursor to the bottom part of the monitor to show me it said the same thing.
“I see it,” I acknowledged they were a little over a year apart, wondering where he was going with this.
“Good. Now listen.”
He hit a play button, and a woman’s robotic voice started speaking, reciting the date was May eleventh, year two thousand and seventeen. Two voices began speaking after that, a conversation I could immediately tell was between Mason and my mother.
Mason: “I’m beginning to think you’re obsessed with me. What do you need at three in the morning?”
Glenda: “You would know all about obsession, considering Katie is all you seem to be interested in.”
Glancing at Mason, I wondered if he had heard the blatant hostility in her voice when she said my name.
As the conversation continued, the way she felt about me became even clearer.
Mason: Are you drunk?
Glenda: I wish I were drunk. I wanted to be sure we were still on the same page. You never answer when I call, so I figured now was a great time.
Mason: Some people actually work, Glenda. I know the concept is strange to you, but I like having money to afford the finer things in life.Nothing has changed. We tell her nothing. We both know she can’t handle the truth.
Glenda: Ah, yes. Money. I had the privilege of affording nice things too, once. Then that bastard gave me two kids, and all the money seemed to vanish.
Mason: The next time you feel the need to have an emotional one on one, call a fucking therapist.
Glenda: I’ll be coming to see you soon, Mason.
There was a little beep after that, and the audio ended. I sat staring at the screen long after he hit the big X in the corner.
“Mason, what are you trying to tell me?”
“Look at this,” he gestured to the screen again, this time showing me a web page with my father’s house displayed. I watched the screen move down to a part that said ‘Pricing and History.'
One click of a button had me even more confused. The house had been sold July Twenty-Sixth of the same year. Almost two months exactly after that phone call.
Rubbing my chest, I began trying to sort through this information in my head. It was pointless, because I had no idea what his intentions were, and the voice in my head was trying to rationalize everything at once.
As if reading my mind, Mason began to explain.
“She owes me a substantial amount of money. And you’re her pretty little lump sum. Your father ensured you would be well provided for. Why do you think she had her claws in you so deep?”
“Wait.” Rubbing my forehead, I struggled to make sense of the situation, “Are you trying to tell me this was planned? And what lump sum? I don’t have any money.”
“She knows I have you, if that’s what you’re asking. That little trip to meet your extended family was bullshit. She doesn’t have any family. I’m guessing she was going to get rid of you and collect the profit.”
Looking up at him, I couldn’t understand why he was so callous about this.
“You don’t even care,” my voice cracked on the last word.
“You’re right; I don’t care, and neither should you. That woman treated you like dog shit not even worth wiping from the bottom of her fake designer shoe.”
His words cut deep, but only because they were true. No one wants to admit their mother hates them for reasons unknown to them. I suppose I always knew it. The girls on television and in town had completely different relationships from the kind my mother and I had.
My father, the tutors, and my nanny always treated me better than she did.
“Is she coming here? Why did she need to see you? What is it you aren’t telling me, Mason?” I questioned.
“We can discuss this another time. I didn’t have you dress up so we could sit around and talk about the past. I just wanted to give you some clarity on what’s going. I know that head of yours can get ahead of itself.
“You don’t have to worry about your mother. I won’t let her hurt you anymore.” He reached for my hand and pulled me up from the chair, closing the discussion without giving me any answers.