Daddy's Boy (9 page)

And even as I finally lay beneath the
plush, white comforter of my large, California king-size bed in my
master suite, I could hear Aiden’s voice and see Dodger’s face
behind my closed lids. Both men were delusional. Not only was I
coldhearted, I was calculating, manipulative, and selfish. I
reminded myself of that as I finally drifted off to
sleep.

Even as the festering darkness grew
thicker within me.

Chapter Six

At the age of six, I was
too young to know what an addiction was, so I didn’t know why I
felt so sick and why I was so irritable; all I knew is my mom was
the same way. So when her friends from before had come over again,
all grins and laughter, I’d watched them suspiciously from the
doorway of the kitchen. I had to stop myself from throwing up when
one of the men lifted up the back of my mom’s dress and she started
making noises like she enjoyed whatever he was doing. I wanted my
father desperately in that moment. My mother was becoming a
completely different person right in front of me, and this time it
was worse than when she’d been drunk all the time. This time she
was allowing man after man to touch her and kiss her—all for
whatever it was that had been in that needle.

The big bear from before,
his blue-eyed gaze cold and filled with evil as they looked at me,
motioned me forward with a finger. “Come here, sweetie pie. Uncle
Albie has a gift for you.”

I was torn. I wanted the
gift, but I didn’t want to be anywhere near that man.

“
No,” I said
petulantly.

“
Beautiful, don’t be rude.
Go on over and talk to your Uncle Albie,” my mother said, licking
her lips and watching as one of the other men placed the tip of the
needle against a spoon and filled it with the liquid that pooled
there.

“
He’s not my uncle!” I
practically yelled.

The room went still as
everyone looked at me. Everyone except my mother, of course; she
was too busy staring at the needle that hovered just above the
inside of her elbow.

“
Get your fucking ass over
here you little bitch.”

Instead of responding, I
turned and ran up the stairs to my room. I could hear that man,
Albie, on the stairs behind me, and I raced into my room and
slammed the door behind me. I looked around then ran toward the
closet, closing the door behind me. I crouched in the corner and
heard the moment Albie came into my room.

“
So this was your plan all
along, huh? Get me upstairs to your room?” His voice came to me,
low and menacing, and I tried to slide away from the closet doors
as I listened to him move around. I didn’t know what he was doing,
but I could hear things falling to the floor, and I wanted to cry
at the thought of him ruining anything belonging to me. I didn’t
know what he was talking about, but I knew he was a bad man, and I
wanted him out of my room and him and his friends away from my
mother and me.

That wasn’t to happen,
however, because seconds later, my closet doors were thrown open,
and he stood there smiling down at me. I tried to push myself
farther back into the closet, but he grabbed my ankle and dragged
me out after him. I screamed and kicked at him, yelling for my
mother to come and help me. His laughter told me that my desperate
cries for help wouldn’t bring any salvation from my only living
parent.

“
Your mother can’t help
you, not that she would,” he said with an evil smile. He lifted me
off the ground and gripped my hair in his fist. “So let’s make a
deal. If you promise not to scream, I promise to give you a present
the next time I come over.”

My eyes burned with tears
streaming down my face. I looked up into his face, and then I felt
that darkness and filth, the very ones that had formed the last
time I’d seen this same man, start to grow within me. I didn’t say
anything, I
couldn’t
say anything, and when I felt his hand move from my arm to
somewhere I knew it shouldn’t be, I also knew I couldn’t scream and
ask for my mom to come and save me.

That was the moment the
filth started to spread within me.

****

I woke up with a silent scream on my
lips, my hair a tangled mess around my shoulders. I panted for
breath, my body trembling, and wondered about the wetness I felt on
my face. I wiped my cheeks, and realized I’d been
crying.

What the fuck was going on with me? I
hadn’t had a nightmare in years, but now the filth of my past was
tearing at my carefully constructed walls. The walls I’d erected to
keep myself safe and sane to protect the really toxic, sulfuric
darkness from mixing with the filthy darkness. I was sure, if the
two were ever to combine, I would break, crushed under the heavy,
inky blackness of my soul.

I rubbed my hands over my
face and shoved my fingers through my hair with a sigh. Looking
over at the clock, I realized it was six o’clock in the morning. I
wanted to lie down to go back to sleep, but I had a yoga class and
lunch with the girls before my hair appointment. Knowing I didn’t
have time to lie abed and take the time to figure out why I was
suddenly
feeling
and remembering, when I took such pains to not do either, I
pushed back the coverlet and swung my legs out of bed. I climbed
out of bed and moved over to my walk-in closet, opening the double
doors that led within. I turned my head and, as I always did,
placed the tips of my fingers against the picture that hung just
within on the wall, though I did not enter.

“
Good morning, Sweetheart,”
I murmured, offering a small smile at the picture of Stella smiling
widely back at me. “I promise to come and see you soon.”

While I didn’t talk to Stella every
day—it wasn’t safe with KuJoe always around and just not feasible
with my clients in and out of my home—I always made sure to greet
her picture every morning.

I also made a promise, the same
promise, every morning, though the number varied each time, but it
was a promise I meant and one I would keep. “Only $60,000 to go,
and then KuJoe will leave us alone, and I’ll be able to see you a
lot more than I do now. I promise.”

Even though I wanted to promise the
picture of Stella that we would be together, and she would be
coming to live with me once I’d paid off KuJoe, I was a little too
rational for that. Until I found something else to do with my life,
there was no way I could bring her to my home; and even then, I
wasn’t sure we would stay here once I did. I was too well known
here, and there was more than one reason she wasn’t with Mom and
the stepfather from hell. Reputations and bad behavior had adverse
effects on children.

I’d told Stella I wouldn’t lie to her,
and I wouldn’t. Not even to a picture of her.

I walked into my closet and over to
one of the built-in dressers and pulled out a pair of yoga pants
and my cutoff T-shirt. I turned and was headed back out of the
closet when my eyes fell on a pair of Jack’s pants, laying on the
floor in the corner. My eyebrows lowered in confusion; how had I
not noticed them there before? As I walked toward the corner to
retrieve the pants, I remembered the event that led to Jack leaving
the pants in my closet. It was the last time I’d ever seen him. The
last time we’d been together before his sickness caused him to be
hospitalized.

****

“
Jack? Do you want to go
out today?” I asked as I lay in bed, twirling a strand of hair
around my finger.

Jack walked into the
bedroom from the bathroom, rubbing a towel over his brown hair, his
brown eyes twinkling with amusement.

“
Do you want to go out
today, Tyler?” he asked, his voice a deep rumble.

I shrugged my shoulders.
“I don’t know. I thought it might be nice.” I wasn’t picky when it
came to spending time with Jack, and he was the same when it came
to me. As long as we avoided places where we could run into his
wife or his kids, we could pretty much go anywhere. And it wasn’t
as if I wanted to go anyplace I might run into her. I wasn’t that
type of companion. I knew some who were. They lived for the type of
excitement that came with almost getting caught by the significant
others of their clients. They also lived for the blackmail and the
extra money that came with that. They didn’t stay in business for
too long.

“
Well, where would you like
to go, Sleeping Beauty?” Jack asked, as he walked toward me, lust
shining in his eyes.

I laughed and scooted away
from him. “Well, definitely not for another ride on your cock, I
can tell you that much.”

“
Why not?” Jack pouted,
which looked quite out of place on his slightly wrinkled
face.

I winced dramatically. “I
don’t think my ass has had sufficient time to recover from our last
round of enthusiastic fucking,” I said.

Jack preened. “I was
rather impressive, wasn’t I?”

“
Oh yes, you were,” I said
with an exaggerated breathlessness. To be honest, having sex with
Jack was never impressive. It was boring, and I’d more than once
had to force myself to stay awake during it. But he didn’t pay me
the exorbitant amount of money he did for me to tell him the truth.
He paid for the fantasy that he was a sex god, which is what I gave
him. And I was damn good at my job.

Jack chuckled. “Okay, I’ll
take pity on you this time.” He turned away from the bed and walked
into the closet, his voice sounding slightly muffled. “So where
should we go?”

I pushed the covers away
from my naked body and caressed my flaccid cock, sighing in
disappointment that it wouldn’t cooperate with my manipulations.
“Perhaps we should go to the museum.”

“
The museum?” Jack sounded
shocked. “Why the fuck would we go there?”

I shrugged, even though he
couldn’t see me, and tried to adopt an air of nonchalance in my
tone. “I don’t know. We haven’t gone since the opening of the Noux
exhibit. I thought it might be nice to see if there were any new
artists there.”

Jack walked out of the
closet wearing a pair of boxers and a blue button-down shirt, a
look of concern in his eyes. “Are you feeling well? You never like
to go to the museum.”

I shrugged again. “Perhaps
you are rubbing off on me.”

He grinned lecherously at
me. “I would love to.”

I rolled my eyes and
chuckled. “You perv.”

He laughed in delight.
“Only with you, my dear. My wife would never allow me to speak to
her in such a way.”

I climbed out of bed,
walking over to him before wrapping my arms around his neck.
“That’s why you have me, Jacky. So you can be yourself.”

“
Thank you for that,” he
said, emotion thick in his voice.

I shook my head. “It is my
pleasure.”

“
I—” Jack’s words cut off
as the blood leeched out of his skin, and he sagged against me. My
legs trembled, as I tried to keep him upright, fear pulsing through
me.

“
Jack? Jack! What’s wrong?
Jack talk to me! JACK!” I yelled as I collapsed to the carpet
beneath his weight.

His breathing was shallow,
and his skin was suddenly hot to the touch. Could someone suddenly
get a fever when they’d been okay only seconds earlier? I rolled
him onto his back as I scrambled to my feet and raced to the phone
to dial 9-1-1. I frantically told the dispatcher what was going on,
as I kept my gaze trained on Jack, my hands shaking.

This could not be
happening. I thought we had more time. Jack had thought we had more
time. Hell, even the doctors had thought Jack had more time, and
they were the best doctors in the world. How could they have been
so wrong?

“
Sir, I’m going to need you
to calm down. The paramedics are on the way. I’m going to stay on
the line with you until they arrive. Your friend is going to be
fine,” the woman on the phone told me.

My brain stuttered to a
halt, and I realized this could get really bad for Jack, really
fast.

“
He-He’s not really my
friend. He’s my benefactor. His company helped get me off the
streets and bought me a condo when I was homeless. He comes to
check on me every so often,” I told her, trying to sound shaken up
but not without any emotional ties to Jack whatsoever. It was the
toughest acting job I’d ever had in my life. Apparently I babbled
when I was scared. Well, that was new information.

“
I see,” the dispatcher’s
tone let me know that she’d read in-between the lines of my words,
and she didn’t agree with my affair with Jack. She also sounded a
bit judgmental, as if Jack deserved to have this happen to him. I
bristled instantly and would have probably gone off on her, if I
hadn’t heard a knock on the door at that moment.

“
Sir? The paramedics are at
your door,” the dispatcher told me. I had never been so happy to
have our building be only ten minutes from the nearest firehouse as
I was in that moment. I was even able to ignore the dispatcher. Her
words sounded snotty and rude, and instead of responding to her, I
merely hung up and grabbed my robe from the chair in the
corner.

“
I’m going to go and let
the paramedics in, Jack, and they’re going to help you,” I promised
him as I pushed my arms through the sleeves. I rushed down the
stairs to my front door, tying the sash around my waist. I opened
the door and showed the paramedics in. I told them where Jack was
and watched as they hurried up the stairs to him.