Chapter 5

 

 

 

Drew just happened to have to go out of town the following Thursday, and then the next and then the next. I knew he was prolonging his turn to talk to Deidra. He promised that wasn’t what it was, and he was just busy with the end of the quarter. He was lying.

“Nope. No way. Celeste can handle it,” I argued when he wanted to cancel again the next week.

“Morgan, we’ve been doing great. Why do we need to keep doing this?”

“Because you promised.”

Drew groaned, whined, and did all but throw himself on the floor in a tantrum, but I won and he went. I think I was more interested in finding out who Drew was, more than fixing anything. He’d never talked about his family, his mother, grandparents, where he grew up, school friends, nothing. I guess I’ve always pictured Drew as an adult. I’d never even seen a picture of him as a little boy, or his mother. He got rid of everything in her room years before. I just didn’t understand why.

“I was beginning to think you guys had the perfect life now,” Deidra spouted, opening the door to her office for us.

“We do,” Drew retorted. I gave him a look. He didn’t want to do this. He wasn’t the least bit interested in digging up old bones. I wanted him to do this. I needed him to do this.

“Let’s start with your earliest memory, Drew. Say around three or four. Do you remember where you lived at that age?” Deidra began.

“Yes, I lived in an apartment over Baker’s Drugstore on Freeport.”

“So you’ve always been a Vegas native?”

“No. You asked me to remember where I lived when I was three or four. I was born in Idaho Falls.” My head instantly turned in his direction. I never knew that. I thought he always lived here in Vegas.

“How old were you when you came to Vegas?”

“Three.”

Deidra had to continue to ask the questions. Drew wasn’t volunteering anything on his own.

“Where is your father?”

Drew shrugged. “Never met the man, well, not that I remember anyway. I guess he’s still in Idaho.”

“Were your parents married?”

“No.”

“Why did you move to Vegas?”

“Because I was three years old. I didn’t have a lot of say in the matter.”

“Okay, why did your mother move to Vegas?”

“She had a fight with my grandparents. She took me and left.”

“Do you know what the fight was about?”

“Does it matter?”

“Do you think it matters?”

“Is this really necessary? What does me being three have to do with Morgan and me?”

“We discussed this when Morgan talked, remember? We can skip to the symptom if you want. I don’t care. It’s your money, you’re paying me. Here, why don’t I just write you a prescription, a magic pill that’ll just make everything perfect? Is that what you want, Drew?” Deidra asked, moving from her customary chair to behind her desk. I held my breath, waiting for Drew to drag me out of her office, never to see her again.

“Drew, please,” I softly pleaded, placing my hand on his forearm. I didn’t like the look. I knew the look. He was pissed.

“Fine, you want to know how I grew up? You think this shit is going to cure the problem? What the fuck is the problem anyway?” Drew asked, standing and raising his voice.

Neither Deidra nor I spoke.

“You want the fucked up details? Is that what you want?” he yelled, looking right at Deidra.

“Nothing you say could surprise me,” she confessed, nodding for him to continue with raised eyebrows.

“We moved here to get away from my grandfather.”

“What do you mean?” Deidra coaxed. Drew turned to look out the window, lowering his voice.

“My grandfather was my mother’s stepdad. When my grandmother went off the deep end, ending up in a psych ward, she was made to take her place. She was thirteen.”

I gasped.

“Drew is your mother’s stepdad, your father?” Deidra tentatively asked.

“Yes.”

I audibly gasped that time. I couldn’t help it. Deidra gave me a look, wanting me to keep it together trying to keep him talking. I didn’t know what to think. Drew kept this bottled up inside him all these years. His step grandfather was also his father. Holy fuck!

“How old was your mother when she got pregnant with you?”

“Fifteen. My mother was a little sick as well. I mean, who wouldn’t be after that, right?” Drew asked as he continued. He never turned around to look at either of us. It was almost as if he wasn’t talking to us at all. “My mom used to tell me this story. Who does that? Why would you ever tell your child things like that? I will never put anything like that on Nicholas’s shoulders—ever. She told me how when my grandmother would have a spell and have to go to the hospital her stepdad would tell her that it was her job to take care of him while she was gone.

My mother had to sleep in the same bed with him, cook for him, pack his bucket, he even made her bathe him. My mother wasn’t your average looking girl. My mother was gorgeous, mind you. She’d always been a beautiful woman, right up to the day she died. Can you imagine telling your son these things? She never did tell me that Carson Boyce was my father, not in so many words, anyway. It wasn’t that hard to figure out. I mean, come on, she told me about sleeping with the bastard. I knew why we left, I wasn’t born yesterday. I always felt dirty, like there was something wrong with me because of who my father was.”

 “He wasn’t blood,” I pointed out, trying to make it better for him. He acted as though he didn’t hear me, and continued. Deidra placed her finger over her lips, telling me not to talk.

“I remember being on that bus for what seemed like days. I don’t know what she was thinking. We had a paper sack with clothes and no money. I vaguely remember sleeping in a shelter and then in the apartment above the drugstore.”

Drew turned and looked right at me. “I don’t know what it’s like to eat popcorn for supper. I never had that luxury. I ate spaghetti from a can, day after day after day. That’s what my mother made for me: spaghetti from a can.”

Drew hated spaghetti. That explained it.

 “My mom never worked a normal job. Her job was done at home. She explained to me that she entertained men to pay the bills. I was too young to know what that meant until I was around ten.”

“What happened when you were ten, Drew?” Deidra asked.

Drew got quiet and stared out the window with a lovely view of an alley full of dumpsters. “She started entertaining Michael. Michael got her a job at the jewelry store down town, moved us to an upscale apartment, and demanded that he was the only man she’d be entertaining from now on.”

“That’s when I started taking care of myself. She would go to his house in the weekends, and I wouldn’t see her until he dropped her back off at our door.”

“Who stayed with you?”

“No one. Michael insisted that I be a man and take care of myself. This was our life until we moved in with him a short time later, very short, like three months. Michael had taken us to a summer fest for wedding planners. That’s when I met Randal Callaway. Randal loved my mother from that first day. I think he really just wanted Michael to settle down and give him a grandchild. At least with my mom, he’d sort of have a grandson, although he never treated me that way.”

“Is that when you moved in with him?”

“Yes, he’d always tell my mother that he was going to marry her, but even at ten, I knew he wasn’t going to do that. She wasn’t the only one that entertained Michael Callaway. She was just the one that was kept in his house.”

“A kept woman?”

“Yes, Michael lavished her in expensive luxuries, and she did everything he told her to do.”

I wanted him to stop. Drew was talking about my father, Michael Callaway. I didn’t want to think of him this way. He was ruining the image of the good-looking man that swept my mother off her feet. He was supposed to be my knight in shining armor.

“You said you started taking care of your mother around the age of ten. What did you mean by that?” Deidra asked.

“My mother was sick, she needed her medication. When she didn’t have it, things happened to her, she saw things. Before we moved to the estate, I made sure she took it religiously. Michael didn’t. He used it as a form of punishment when she didn’t do what he wanted.  Michael would keep it from her sometimes and then call the medics to come and get her. She’d be gone for a few days and then he’d bring her back, keep her on her meds until she pissed him off, or didn’t do what she was told.”

“She was schizophrenic?” I softly questioned.

“Yes. She’d see demons, thinking they were coming for her for having a devil child. Sometimes the demons would send allies, spiders, snakes, and armies of insects. She’d hide in a corner, kicking her legs, trying to get them off her. That’s when Michael would call for help and she’d be gone for a few days. I hated when Michael made me go to that hospital. It gave me the creeps, and it was exactly the way my mother described it to me when she had to visit her mother.”

I attentively listened to Drew describe the crazy house, the other patients, and the way his mother would tell him he was a devil’s spawn. She blamed him for putting her there, not Michael. My heart was breaking for him. I’d spent all these years thinking poor me. I never knew. I always thought of Drew as a poor little rich kid.

“Good job, Drew. I’m proud of you, and I feel like we’ve made some progress today. I think that’s enough for one day. We’ll pick up here next week,” Deidra proposed. I didn’t want him to stop. I wanted him to keep talking. I wanted to know.

Drew looked at me, realizing what he’d just said in front of me. He didn’t like it.

“Let’s go,” he ordered.

I followed Drew’s quick pace to the car. He was upset; he never walked in front of me. “Drew,” I softly tried, touching his arm.

“Don’t! You fucking happy? Is that what you needed to hear? You can look down on me now. You can take me off your fucking pedestal,” he yelled, jerking his arm away from my touch.

I didn’t know what to say, so I didn’t say anything. Drew got in the driver’s seat not opening my door and tapped the steering wheel with his fingers. I was afraid, really afraid for the first time in a long time. He drove like a crazy person, weaving in and out of traffic all the way home. We rode in silence with me being terrified of my husband and Drew pissed off at the world.

“What?” he answered Celeste through the car speaker.

“You on your way? We have a briefing, remember?”

“I’m not going. You go. You can handle it, can’t you, or do you need me to come and hold your fucking hand?”

“Drew,” I tried calming him. He shot me a look to shut up. I did.

“Damn, sure no problem. Call me when you get your shorts out of your ass.”

Drew hung up.

“Go upstairs,” Drew ordered, parking the car.

“No, Drew. You’re upset. I’m afraid to be alone with you.”

“You should be, and you don’t want to defy me right now,” he assured me through gritted teeth and a terrifying, hateful glare.

I didn’t want to go upstairs with him. I was afraid of what he would do.

Marta met us at the door with Nicholas. I took him from her and kissed his cheeks. He squealed, seeing Drew behind me. Drew didn’t even talk to him, he took him from my arms and handed him back to Marta.

“Take him,” he ordered, shoving me towards the stairs.

“Morgan?” she called after me.

“It’s fine. We’ll be down in a little bit.”

Drew answered his phone, stopping me at the bottom step. “Go upstairs and take your clothes off. I’ll be there as soon as I take this call,” he quietly ordered in my ear.

Of all times that I wanted to protest, this was it. I could put Drew in his place just like Celeste and Deidra did, but not now, not like this. I was afraid to defy him in his current state, knowing I’d only make it worse.

I sat naked on the bed, waiting for what seemed like hours for Drew to come and do what I knew he was going to do. It brought back a flood of emotions and memories. I used to hate waiting naked for Drew to come to me. What the hell was I doing? I didn’t have to deal with this. I could walk away with Nicky and never look back. Why couldn’t I do that? Why didn’t I just get up, get dressed, and take my baby out of there?

Because Drew had just opened up a new can of worms, that’s why. I’d just learned some pretty messed up shit about his upbringing. I felt sorry for him. He was hurting and needed to vent. I wish he could vent in other ways, like let me be there for him, tell him we were going to be okay, and make him feel secure. He wasn’t the type to do that, not yet anyway. Hopefully, Deidra would get us to that point, but right now Drew needed me to be somebody else. I would be that person for him. I could take the fucked up sex. I just hoped he didn’t feel the need to hit me.

“You like thinking about Celeste licking Alicia’s pussy?” Drew asked, slamming the door behind him. What the fuck? I wasn’t expecting that. That had been weeks ago. I hadn’t mentioned it at all. “Get up,” he demanded.

I stood, trying to feign a hurt look, wanting him to see what he was doing.

“Answer me. You like that, Morgan? Is that what your problem is? You want your pussy licked by Alicia, or is it Celeste?”

“No,” I quietly replied, taking the blow to the corner of my mouth. I could taste the blood before I saw it.

Drew grabbed a fist full of my hair and pulled me to him. “You know I love you, don’t you, Morgan?” he asked, fighting with everything in him not to hurt me.

“Yes, it’s okay. We’re okay, Drew,” I tried soothing him.

He shoved me away from him, backhanding me again, and then again before throwing me to the bed. I was scared. I hadn’t seen Drew like this in a very long time. He wasn’t Drew at all. He was out of control. I screamed when his belt came down hard across my ass. After five very painful blows, I breathed a sigh of relief, hearing the belt hit the floor.

I felt the sting across my ass when he told me to roll over.

“Spread your legs. Isn’t that what you want, Morgan? You like being a little slut?” he asked, running his fingers up my pussy. I wasn’t wet like I would have normally been. I was in too much pain to be wet. I could feel my swollen lip with my tongue, still tasting blood. The dull ache in my eye reminded me of his knuckles, and my ass felt like it was bleeding fire.

I couldn’t answer, I couldn’t talk. I was in my own state, hell, I couldn’t even cry. I didn’t know what I was feeling: hurt, anger, betrayal, wounded. I had so many emotions going on at once, I didn’t know how to feel. I didn’t want to feel that, I thought, watching Drew emerge from our closet with the rod that I didn’t want. I didn’t want to come, I didn’t want to come close to coming, and I didn’t want him touching me.

“You honestly don’t think you’re going to come, do you?”

Again, I didn’t answer. I grabbed the covers in both my fists as he touched me with the electrical current, bringing me to the brink of an orgasm that I wouldn’t be having. Nine agonizing jolts later, he was finally tired of playing that game. Thank god. I didn’t know how much more I could take without begging him to stop.

“Roll over, bad girl.”

I moved to my stomach, accepting his soothing hands on my sore ass. “Why do you make me do this?” he asked, rubbing the soreness from my ass cheeks.

Again, I didn’t answer. He wasn’t looking for answers. I felt him spread my ass cheeks with his hands, exposing my puckered hole. Closing my eyes, I used my senses to figure out what he was doing. Listening to the cap being popped on the tube, and feeling the cool liquid run down the crack of my ass, he massaged the lubricant around my opening before inserting a finger, and then two. Relying on my senses, I heard the tear from the condom. He only used a condom when he was planning on finishing in my mouth. Clenching my jaw, I felt him slide in a little, and then a little more until he was slowly moving in and out of me.

“Move up on your knees and spread yourself open.”

I did what I was told as he grabbed my hips and pulled me towards him, in and out, in and out. Drew picked up speed and vigor, hissing and moaning as he fucked me. I knew it was just a matter of time. He slid out of me, pulled me to the floor by my arm and stroked himself on my lips. Jerking himself to come, he moved me back to the bed, slid into my pussy and pumped ferociously in an out, trying to make himself come. As soon as he felt the sensation again, he pushed me back to my knees and I swallowed him.

“Drew,” I called before he closed the door, leaving me alone.

He turned to me with regret already showing in his eyes.

“I never put you on a pedestal,” I quietly said, lowering my eyes from his just like I would have before my accident, when he treated me like my father treated his mother.