Sucking in a deep breath, I tried to stop the tears from overflowing my eyes. I shook my head. After everything Dad had been through, I would have died before I let that happen. Hell, I might’ve even become a prostitute for real.”
Ansel’s expression flipped like a switch from anger to disbelief. He swayed slightly on his feet as he processed my words. “You really paid the taxes for the farm?”
“Yes. I did.”
He jerked a hand through his sandy hair. “So you’re not some kind of hooker?”
I rolled my eyes. “BDSM and S&M relationships aren’t always about having sex. Domme’s rarely have sex with their clients, and I never did.” I had to bite my lip to keep from adding, “Until William.”
“And you just spanked men at some club?”
“Among other things.”
His eyes widened. “You always do that kinky stuff with guys?”
“Not that it’s really any of your business, the answer is no. I was only a Domme at the club.” Once again, I failed to add that was until William.
“Dr. F was into that shit?”
Of course, he would have to bring that up. “Yes. He was.”
Ansel’s brow furrowed. “Then how were you guys together?”
“It’s complicated. Let’s just leave it at that.”
I could tell Ansel wanted to ask a million more questions, but he bit his tongue and kept quiet. “Are we okay now?” I tentatively asked.
“Yeah, we’re okay. I’m just going to need some time to let all this sink in.”
“I understand. But while you’re letting it all sink in, just remember that I’m still your sister, and I always have and always will love you.”
“I know that.” He kicked a pebble on the ground. “I love you, too, Soph. None of this shit or anything else will ever change that.”
Hearing him say those words meant everything to me. “I’m sorry for hitting you.”
“Nah, I needed it. I was a real asshole to say what I did.”
“Yeah, you were, but I still shouldn’t have hit you.”
He reached out and embraced me, squeezing me tight. “You better go talk to Dad.”
“Okay. I will.” I pulled out of his arms. I planted a tender kiss on the cheek where I slapped him before heading back to the house.
Before today, it had never seemed like such a long distance, but by the time I reached the front door, it felt like I’d been walking for miles. My fear and trepidation had grown to a fevered pitch.
After glancing in the den, I saw that Dad wasn’t there. When I started down the hallway, it seemed to stretch out for miles before me like a scene out of The Shining. Passing my bedroom door, I wished for nothing more than to run inside, slam the door, and hide out under the covers like I had when I was younger. How I longed for those simple problems that at the time had seemed so monumental.
The door to my father’s bedroom opened, and Susie stepped out. At the sight of me, she quickly closed the door. Although I know she tried to hide it, her expression told of all the emotions running through her head from disbelief to disdain to denial.
“Yes.”
“I’m sorry?” she questioned.
Drawing my shoulders back, I replied, “Yes, it’s true. Whatever you’ve heard on the news or through the gossip mill, it’s all true.”
“I see,” she murmured.
I glanced past her to Dad’s room. “Does he…?”
At Susie’s pained expression, my heart clenched in my chest. “It came on the television before I could change it,” she said apologetically.
My hand flew to my mouth as I fought the urge to throw up. The thought of telling him had been agonizing, but now it was even worse. He had been denied hearing it first from my lips, and now I had to try to clean it all up somehow.
“He doesn’t believe any of it.”
I stared at Susie in surprise. “He doesn’t?”
She shook her head. “You know him. He won’t until he hears it from you.”
With trembling fingers, I turned the knob, sending the door creaking open on its ancient hinges. At the sound, my dad’s head turned to follow the noise, sliding slowly across the pillow. I inhaled a deep breath before stepping over the threshold. Dad’s hollow eyes tracked me as I made my way across the floor. Before I reached his side, a voice on the television froze me mid-step.
“Once again, our top story tonight is a sex scandal out of Milton High involving the newly appointed principal, William Foster, and a teacher, Sophie Jameson. It appears as though the two were affiliated with an unnamed, private BDSM club in Atlanta…”
Hearing the story spun so sordidly caused my stomach to lurch again. Then to my horror, one of the stolen pictures from the club flashed on the screen. Outfitted in my blue corset and boots, I held a flogger in my hand. Humiliation flooded me that my father was hearing and seeing the part of my life I had worked so hard to keep secret. I pinched my eyes shut and tucked my head to my chest. There was no way in hell I could bear to look at him. The daughter he had such pride in was soiled and dirty.
“Soph?” Dad questioned.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t speak. I knew there was a million things I needed to say…to explain, yet the once eloquently well-spoken girl remained silent. Hot tears of shame and remorse streaked down my cheeks, but I didn’t bother wiping them away.
“Sophie Marie Jameson. Look. At. Me.”
When I dragged my gaze to his, surprise rippled through me. Instead of the anger and disappointed I imagined, his eyes held only concern. With a shaky hand, he motioned for me to come to his side. Once again, I obeyed without hesitation. Instead of sitting in the chair beside the bed, I eased down on the mattress beside him.
“You tell me. I want to—I need to—hear it from you,” he said. He then held out his hand for me to take just like he always had when I was scared or I’d had a bad day at school. The simple gesture caused the carefully constructed dam holding back my emotions to implode. Ragged sobs tore through my body.
When I finally caught my breath, I moaned, “Oh Daddy.”
“What have I always said?”
“That’s there’s nothing I could ever do that would make you not love me.”
He nodded. “Nothing, mon rayon de soleil.”
He almost broke me again using the French for “my sunshine.” It was a term my Grand-maman had called him when he was a boy, and he did the same to Ansel and me when we were little.
I drew in a deep breath. Now wasn’t the time to be a chicken shit, or as my grandmother would say, “a merde de poulet.” “Five years ago, I met a girl at college who told me about this club,” I began.
My father’s gaze never left mine, and his expression never changed. Part of me expected him to show shame or disgust as I explained how I’d taken money to beat and torture men for their pleasure. But he didn’t.
The only time he showed any emotion was when I told him how Calla had bribed the security guard to get the tapes of William and me. His jaw had clenched, and his eyes had darkened. I knew he was thinking if he was his old self he would have gone to beat the shit out of the security guard. His code of ethics wouldn’t have allowed him to hit a woman.
“Don’t worry about her. I put her in her place last night.”
His brows popped up. “Oh?”
I grinned. “Oh yeah. She won’t be working at Club 1740 ever again, and she’s probably having trouble walking today.”
Daddy chuckled, which induced one of coughing fits. They seemed more like coughing seizures the way his body would jerk and spasm as he tried to catch his breath. I bolted off the bed and went for the glass of water on the nightstand. When I tried to bring it to his lips, his shook his head. Time ticked agonizingly by as I had to watch his face redden and listen to the rattle in his throat and chest. Each time one of these fits happened, fear consumed me that it would be the last time. That his weakened lungs and diaphragm would just give out under the strain. This time I didn’t hide my tears. After all, I’d already been crying. Daddy wouldn’t assume it was about him.
“I’m…okay,” he finally wheezed. He eyed the glass in my hand. “I can take some now.”
With a nod, I brought it to his mouth. He began to take small sips. Finally, the normal color returned to his face. The coughing had exhausted him, and he let his head fall back against the pillow. “Proud of you.”
I hiccupped. “How can you possibly say that? I’ve embarrassed you and Ansel. I’ve ruined our name in this town. I’ve been fired from the job I worked so hard to get. I may never be able to teach again.”
“Do you know how my mother and father met?”
I nodded. “Grand-Maman was working in the café where Grandpapan came.”
Daddy smiled a secret smile before motioning for me to turn his oxygen up. After I turned the dial on the machine up, he inhaled a few breaths. “Your grandmother never worked in a café. She was dancing in a burlesque show.”
“But Burlesque in Paris is basically stripping.” At Dad’s nod, I gasped. “Grand-Maman was a stripper?”
“Out of necessity. Her father had been killed in the war, and they’d lost their farm. They’d been forced to move in with her aunt. As the oldest, she was expected to help feed her five brothers and sisters. Decent jobs were hard to come by, and they didn’t pay shit. One day when she was coming out of the factory she was working in, a man approached her. When she learned how much money she could make while using her love for dance, she started at the club.”