Tangled Truth(16)

“You said you weren’t in the lifestyle,” she whispered.

“I’m not. You already know I don’t have to do this to get off. But I sure as hell like it. And I like you. And you seem to like this. So why is it such a problem? Tell me.”

She shook her head, refusing to meet his eyes. “I’ve never told anybody about this.”

“Well,” he said, using a finger on her chin to gently coax her to face him again, “maybe it’s time you did.”

It was a long, tense moment of silence filled with muddy thoughts and doubts. Drew was on the verge of breaking it when Eva finally spoke, her voice coming out in a shaky little whisper as though she feared being overheard.

“Tonight. Let’s get through the rest of the shoot, and then I’ll tell you tonight.”





Chapter Six



She looked small and forlorn, sitting in the middle of his bed that evening, wrapped in a blanket and clutching a mug of hot chocolate laced with peppermint schnapps. Ready to tell her tale, but not happy to do so.

They had wrapped up the photo shoot earlier than usual, never having hit that magical workflow Danny and Sheila so often achieved. Eva had been withdrawn, thoughtful and compliant but not animated as they finished the day’s tasks. She hadn’t complained when Drew drove her to his apartment instead of hers, or when he settled her in the bed like the fragile invalid she suddenly seemed.

Drew perched near the foot of the bed, hoping like hell he had done the right thing in pressuring her to talk about it. She was pale, even more so than usual, and her face was expressionless as she started to speak.

“It’s not what you’re probably thinking. I wasn’t abused or anything. In fact, the more I think about it, the dumber it seems that it’s even an issue.”

“Why don’t you just tell me? And then if it seems dumb, we’ll take it from there.”

She sighed. “Okay. It started in high school. Or the summer after high school. I had been dating the same boy for almost two years. Andy,” she said, and a ghost of a smile whispered across her lips. “I think we both already knew we would go our separate ways once we got to college, but we were friends, we trusted each other. We had fun, and we were trying a lot of new things that summer, going a little crazy.

“So this particular time, he’d decided to try tying me to the bedposts. I was laughing at first, just going along with it. But once he had me all tied up and started to touch me, I realized I really couldn’t get away. And everything changed.” A shiver passed through her, but it didn’t look like one of cold. Her eyes drifted shut as her story grew more intense.

“Andy realized something was different too. I was so turned-on, and he barely had to touch me before I came. And even after that I was asking for more. Begging. We sixty-nined and I came again, which had never happened before. Andy started putting a condom on, but he was still kneeling up over my head. I still had my mouth on his— I was still sort of returning the favor…”

Surprised that she’d stopped her story in the middle of the action, Drew gave her a second before prompting her. “And then?”

With a deep breath, Eva whispered, “And then my mother walked in.”

“Oh fuck.” The picture was all too sharp in Drew’s mind. The girl, naked and flushed from her recent debauchery, tied in an X. The boy, his skinny haunches straddling her head, his freshly sheathed cock straining upward while she nuzzled his balls from beneath. There would be no possible way to explain that away. No way to claim it wasn’t exactly what it looked like.

“Yeah. ‘Oh fuck’ is right. She freaked out. Not only in the way you might think,” Eva explained, the memory of her mortification still marring her features. “I mean, she started screaming and hitting us both. Andy was trying to untie me and still protect me from her, and then she said…” Eva sniffled, and although she looked like she might cry at any moment, no tears fell. She looked too cold for tears; they would surely turn to ice before reaching her cheeks. “Then she said I was a sick pervert just like my father, and that’s why she’d kicked him out, and now I could get out too. And we were all going straight to hell.”

“Wow.” He thought he should probably say more but couldn’t think of anything appropriate to counter what he’d heard. “Wow.”

“Yeah, I always thought he’d had a drinking problem or something, and that’s why they’d split up. That’s what I’d been led to believe up to that point, anyway. Turns out, not so much.” Eva looked ill, but determined to finish. “I was coming here to college anyway, so Mom packed me off early. Actually, she had me on a plane the next day. She sent all my stuff after me later. I mean all my stuff, everything she had of mine. Baby clothes, pictures. Everything. That was it, as far as she was concerned.”