Chapter Seven
My cock is limp. I grasp my dick and squeeze. Nope. Nothing. I’ve tried porn. I’ve obviously tried to jack off. Not a hint of wood. I close my eyes. I think of Tara.
Naked.
Her breasts full and round, and her mouth a gorgeous O shape. She kneels before me, such a gorgeous sight. Her mouth opens. She takes my cock into her hand and pulls my dick into her mouth…
I stroke up and down. Oh yeah. Getting harder. Firmer. Tara’s mouth….yes, yes….Tara’s mouth sucking my cock. From limp noodle to harder, not hard, but hard-ish. I stroke down and up. The wet suction of her mouth on my cock. Her slick lips on my flesh. Her mouth open and sliding over me. This is working. Finally, something other than Tara being in my bedroom is working. Granted, it’s still her image, but oh yes, fuck yes, my cock is nearly hard. Faster and faster I stroke myself. Heat builds. Come on baby, come on. My body responds. I hold the vision of Tara in my mind. Fuck yes, I can jack off, I can masturbate, to Tara I can—
“What the Fuck!”
Gone. My erection is fucking gone! Like a snowflake in an oven, the motherfucker has gone limp again.
“Fuck!” I jump from my bed and force myself not to slam my fist into a wall. “Fuck!” I yank at my hair. Buck-ass naked and fucking pissed, I walk toward my bathroom. My phone buzzes.
Not my personal phone, but my Wonderfuck phone.
I grab the phone. I look at the number. My cock tightens. Tara. Fuck. It’s Tara.
I don’t want to see Tara. But I need to see Tara.
I need to fuck. I need to fuck her. I can only fuck her.
‘Friday?’
I’m like a fucking addict. ‘Where?’
‘Malibu.’
Me going to Malibu on a Friday will mean me being with Tara for an entire weekend. Can I do that? Do I want to do that? The last time we were together in Malibu was when I walked out and left her crying on the couch. That was meant to be the end.
I thought it was the end.
I wanted it to be the end.
Didn’t I?
I wish…I wish…what do I wish?
I pull my hands through my hair and shake my head. I wish I could go back. Back to when? Back to before Tara wrote that fucking article, to before Susie died, back to when—
‘Yes.’
I type yes because yes is the only response that I can possibly give.
***
“You’re here because—”
“The Judge forced me to be here,” I say. I shoot Vida my most charming smile. The smile that causes women to remove their panties.
She lifts an eyebrow and tilts her head. “Unwilling participants don’t usually get much from therapy.” Her tone is a study in non-judgment.
This’ll be interesting if nothing else. I’ve hidden my true feelings for years. This woman ¬– my therapist by court order – Vida, has to do the same thing every damn day. Hide her true feelings. What’s it like being a waste can for other people’s emotions? A place where they toss their emotional bullshit? If I ask that exact question, how pissed off will my new therapist be?
Instead I ask, “How many years have you practiced?” My gaze flits around her office. The colors are calming. Rich and deep jewels tones. Blue and green with some artwork on the walls that is meant to soothe. Her diploma is framed and hangs over her desk and books on shelves against the far wall. She sits opposite me on a chair while I inhabit a gray couch.
“Twenty-five years,” she says. I feel her gaze on me. “Why don’t you tell me what happened?”
I look into her grayish-blue eyes. “You don’t get a file?”
“I fill out the forms you provide that indicate to the court you’ve participated, but no, they don’t contact me and tell me what you did, nor do they inquire as to what we talk about.”
A yellow pad for notes rests on her lap and a pen lies on the table beside her.
I take a deep breath. “Rage,” I say. “Justified rage.”
Again, with the lifted eyebrow, followed by silence. This is a technique, the silence. One that I’ve used in fact, as a businessman and as Wonderfuck. Silence is a key that unlocks the door to other people’s thoughts, feelings, and needs. I wait. I wait longer than most people would wait to fill the silence. Can I make her uncomfortable with my silence? I’m pretty certain I can, eventually. Maybe not now, but soon enough.
“A woman. My neighbor was confronted by her ex fiancé and I beat the shit out of him.”
“Why?”
“He knocked her down.”
“He pushed her? Tried to harm her?”
I shift in my seat. “She grabbed his arm. He jerked it from her. She fell, and I hit him.”
“Were you involved with her?”
“Not then.”
“And now?”
Am I involved with Tara? Jake isn’t, but Wonderfuck… “No.”
“And in between then and now?”
She’s got me. I can lie or I can be honest. Let’s go with honest and see just how good Vida can dig. “Yes.”
I go on to tell her parts of our short, sexual relationship. I leave out the sexy details and I omit the parts as Wonderfuck. I leave the story open-ended as to why this relationship failed.
“That sounds intense.”
Lady, you have no idea. She doesn’t have a motherfucking clue as to the intensity of my life, my feelings, my pain.
“Do you still have feelings for her?”
I glance at the clock. Smile at Vida. “Looks like our time is up?” I say with an obvious dodge.
She nods. She smiles. A knowing look flits through her eyes. My chest tightens with an uncomfortable rage.
“I have time for an answer,” she says.
My smile drops from my face. Vida wants an answer? I’ll give her one. I lean forward and drop my elbows to my knees, an intimate motion, as though I’m about to let her in on a secret, one that I haven’t shared with anyone, maybe not ever.
“Vida.” I look directly into her eyes waiting for her to blink, which she does. “I’m simply too fucking broken to care anymore.”
Twenty-five years. For a millisecond, Vida’s lips turn into a tiny O as though I may have penetrated that twenty-five years of therapeutic practice façade. Maybe I’ve thrown her for just a moment. Maybe.
“See you next week,” I say, and pop up and walk out of her office. Let Vida chew on my fucked up psyche for a while.
***
“Richard, isn’t this where Rachel goes to school?”
There are so many wrong things about the sentence that just exited Mom’s mouth. Instead of running through the mistakes, I pull into the parking spot next to the front door of Lily’s school and turn off my car.
“Yes.” I get out, walk around and open the car door for Mom. Getting Lily only takes five minutes, but I can’t risk leaving Mom alone in my car for even that little bit of time. I’d come back and find my car on the front lawn, or Mom lost and wandering in the neighborhood surrounding Lily’s school, or perhaps hanging upside down from the jungle gym in the play yard. I don’t know. None of us do. Mom’s become a complete and total wild card.
“Let’s get Lily.” I clasp her hand. Her smile crinkles the lines around her eyes. Is she smiling at me or is she smiling at Richard, my dad, and the guy she most often thinks I am?
Does it matter?
Not a fucking bit because she’s smiling, and she’s safe, and she loves the person she’s with, and she’s excited to see the person we’re about to pick up from school.
We turn down the open-air walkway toward Lily’s classroom. Today is music day in the summer enrichment program, and the strains of bongos and tambourines float toward us. Mom and I walk into Lily’s classroom, a gaggle of parents line the wall near the door, all waiting for the last few minutes of music to end.
Lily sits between a red-haired girl and a boy with curly black hair. She pounds a cow bell with a stick.
Because, who doesn’t need more cow bell?
The music teacher keeps the beat by slapping her hand against her thigh, and the kids shake their bodies and play their instruments. The tune? Who knows? But their joy and enthusiasm rocket this jamboree into the stratosphere. A smile curves over my face, reflecting back the look on fifteen kids’ faces.
“Such a beautiful job!” the music teacher exclaims, and these kids absolutely believe her because their music is beautiful, their joy is magnetic. This moment for all the parents and aunts and uncles lining the back wall makes everyone forget about their bills, their mortgages, their jobs. All any of us are thinking about this second is how fucking-fantastic it is to watch these kids light up this fucking room.
I smile at Mom but her brow is furrowed and her lips are pulled down at the corner. Uh-oh. Storm clouds brewing, and there is likely no good reason why. I follow Mom’s gaze toward the far side of the room.
“Mom, you okay?” I grasp her upper arm with my hand.
“Richard, I don’t wish to cause a scene,” she whispers, “but it’s incredibly difficult for me to be here with that woman.”
That woman? Fuck. That woman is the woman that Mom is convinced I’ve slept with, and while she’s absolutely right, she thinks I am Richard and she’s married to me and that I’m carrying on with another mother in Rachel’s classroom.
My sanity careens just a smidge.
“Let’s get Lily and go.” I gently move Mom forward toward Lily, where she stands putting away the cowbell.
“Hey, doll, ready to go?”
“George wants to have a play date.”
The boy standing beside Lily looks familiar. Discomfort edges around my belly. I glance from George to Lily. “Well, Lily, I’m sure your mom would be okay with a play date but I’ve got Grandma, and we’re supposed to meet your mom for dinner tonight and—”
“Hi.” Kendall’s voice is smooth without evidence of the anger she felt the last time I saw her, but her eyes still have that hard-edged crazy. Mom stiffens. Kendall stands behind George and places her hands on his shoulders. “We’d like to have Lily over for a play date.”
I know what kind of play date Kendall wants to have with me.
“I’m sure Rachel will be okay with it, but we’re meeting her for dinner tonight. I’ll have her call you.”
“No.” Mom’s voice is low and coiled tight with rage. “You cannot have my daughter in your home.” Her voice rises with each word, as though every syllable adds fuel to a fire. “You whore. You horrible slut! How can you do this? How can you sleep with my husband and then ask my daughter to come to your home?”
The classroom is silent.
“Mom,” I say softly. “Mom, please, we need to go.”
Confusion flickers in Lily’s eyes.
“Mom, what’s a slut?” George asks.
Kendall’s jaw tightens. “We’ll discuss this in the car.” She turns George away from me, Mom, and Lily.
“Come Rachel, you have no business being around this type of woman.” Mom sniffs and grabs Lily’s hand. “Richard, if you wish to stay with that whore then please do. Lily and I will be in the car.”
I turn to Kendal and mouth ‘Sorry’.
Most of the parents in Lily’s classroom know Mom has Alzheimer’s. Lily’s teacher flashes me an angry look as I trail Mom and Lily out the classroom door. Mrs. Bennett won’t be allowing Mom in her classroom any more.