Master for Tonight (7 page)

“You two know each other, babe?” the woman
asked as she placed some items into the basket Stan held in the
crook of his arm.

“Yeah, honey. This is Kate.
Kate Collins. From the shelter? I went to the benefit last year
because you couldn’t make it. She helps out there.” His eyes bore
into Kate’s with the message,
Don’t say
anything!
written all over them.

“Oh! Yes!” Stan’s wife said, reaching out to
shake Kate’s hand. “One of the kids was sick that night, and I
couldn’t go.”

Kate found her voice to say, “Well, it looks
like you have a lot of shopping to do, so…”

“Oh, we’re having a party Friday, and I
wanted to get a head start on the grocery shopping tonight, so I
can start the food prep tomorrow. We hate hiring caterers, don’t
we, babe? They always mess something up,” she said, scanning her
shopping list. “We need to get going, Stan. Nice meeting you,
Kathy!” She turned and walked away.

Kate’s mouth fell open and her eyes watered,
as she flipped around to leave the store, not saying another
word.

Stan sneaked away from his wife, found Kate
as she was exiting the store, and chased her out. He caught her as
she ran to her car, and pulled her around the side of the building,
where no one would hear their conversation, and his wife wouldn’t
find them if she came out. He held her against the brick wall with
a hand over her mouth, yelling at her to stop struggling and listen
to him. When she stopped, he removed his hand and started
explaining his version of the truth.

He said he hadn’t told Kate he was married
because things between him and his wife were complicated. He wasn’t
sure if his marriage was over or not, but he still wanted to see
Kate until everything with his wife got sorted out. His wife didn’t
understand him the way Kate did. Of course, he cared for Kate, just
like he had told her. She had to understand, even as much as he
wanted to be with her, he still owed it to his four children to
stay with his wife until they were grown. Then he and Kate would be
together. She had to understand how he didn’t want to sully his and
Kate’s relationship with all of that. She was special to him.
Didn’t she know?

Wait a minute! Stan has kids?

She remembered vividly the way he had told
her he didn’t want children. According to him, she was too old, at
that point, to even think about having them. That’s one of the
reasons she was perfect for him. Besides, he had told her, she
couldn’t afford the extra pounds having a baby would leave on
her.

At her shocked expression, Stan’s response,
as he knocked back another beer, was nonchalant, at best. “What?
You know it’s true, babe. Oh, don’t act like that, Kate. At your
age, you’d never lose the extra fat. I mean, I love your ass. You
know that. But it’s big enough, as it is. You’ve said it yourself,
so don’t act like you’re hurt. You’re right!”

Kate’s stomach dropped and her eyes
watered.

Outside, against the wall of the grocery
store, Kate begged Stan, with tears flowing down her cheeks, to let
go of her and let her leave. She tried to push him off of her, but
he was too strong. He started shaking her violently, and her head
cracked against the brick wall several times. When she opened her
mouth to scream, he forced his tongue down her throat. She kneed
him in the groin as hard as she could and ran to her car,
screaming.

It had been a miracle Kate made it home to
her apartment that night. Slamming her car into park at the first
empty parking space she found, she ran up the stairs, and with
shaking hands, missed the door lock three times, and dropped her
keys twice before getting the door open.

Throwing herself onto the couch, she had
cried at his revelation, as well as the way he had attacked her.
Kate held the back of her head as it throbbed. She was too
embarrassed and ashamed to call an ambulance. She didn’t want to
explain to strangers how she had been deceived, learned the truth
at the local grocery, and then was attacked by the cheating husband
she had shared her bed and heart with for months.

Kate felt so stupid, believing everything he
had said to her. She never saw the signs she knew had to have been
there. Why didn’t she look? Why had she trusted him? “Stupid,
stupid, stupid,” she called herself as tears ran down her cheeks.
The shame of allowing Stan to have her willing body so many times
and in so many ways enveloped her. The memory of the whispered
words of endearment between them after making love made her
ill.

Running to the bathroom, she vomited until
her stomach wrenched with dry heaves. She rested her face on the
side of the cool toilet until the nausea passed. She melted in a
heap onto the bathroom floor, staying there for the rest of the
night.

It’s all my fault. I did
this to myself. I let this happen. Me.
Kate
shamed again and cried until she fell asleep.

The next day, she called Nana to let her
know she and Stan were over and why, not mentioning her head
injury. Nana called him a “rat bastard asshole of a man,” to treat
her that way, and told her to come over right then for some cherry
pie, which was Kate’s favorite. Nana held her while she cried,
rubbing her back as she poured out her heart, a fast-moving river
of pain.

Kate nursed her skull herself, using online
medical advice, ice packs, and nonprescription pain killers. She
knew she was stupid to let her pride stand in the way of her
seeking medical help, but there was no way she was going to answer
all the questions and be labeled as an abuse victim. It had taken
months for both the headaches and nightmares to stop.

And then, after she had opened herself to
him, that strange man had uttered those same words to her, after
using her for his benefit. Kate had let another man use her.

“It’s complicated.”

*

“You’re married?” Kate shrieked, rearing
back and slapping him hard across his cheek, surprising both of
them. Shocked, he rubbed his jaw, looking at her as she cradled her
wrist in her other hand.

“I deserve that, but no, I’m not married,
Kate. Far from it.” His tone was guarded. “If you think I don’t
find you attractive or don’t still want to bury myself inside you,
you’re wrong. My situation is just complicated. I took this too far
without thinking it through, because I’m head over heels for you,
love.” Julian reached out for her injured hand. “Let me see your
wrist. It probably needs ice. Does it hurt, love?” He stepped
towards her, his hand reaching out further to her as she backed
away, almost tripping over the hem of her gown.

Her angry eyes flared at the endearment.
“No.” She firmly said the forbidden word, and he jerked like she
had slapped him again. She paced the room back and forth, pointing
at him with blazing eyes. He thought she never looked more
stunning, and reached out to her again. Julian could imagine how
strikingly beautiful her eyes would be, backlit by vampiric
fire.

“Kate. Didn’t you hear what I said? I'm
not—”

Pulling back from him, she
screamed out her pain, “Don’t you touch me! You have no right! You
came here...to
my
home! You scared me half to death! I thought you were going to
murder me! Apparently, you’ve been stalking me, too!”

“I wouldn’t necessarily go that far,” Julian
said, rubbing the back of his neck and watching her for any sudden
movements. He didn’t want her to hurt herself again.

Continuing her tirade, she
accused, “You seduced me! You made me experience things I’ve never
felt before! You made me want you! I don’t even know who you are!
What did I ever do to you? Is this a joke to you? Am I a joke to
you? The whole
dark lord
act... Oh my God! Why did you do this to me? This
is not happening to me again!” Her voice lowered with each plea, as
reality sunk into her like a stone in a raging river of despair.
She threw herself on her bed in tears, wailing, “Why, why, why?”
Her words were muffled by the comforter.

He watched her cry, knowing she would reject
his touch. All the same, he walked over to the bed and eased
himself down the edge of the mattress. He held his head in his
hands, staring at the ground, feeling like the one hundred percent
asshole he knew he was, and knowing every angry word she threw at
him was true. He couldn’t leave her there like that, so distraught,
so vulnerable, and hurting because of him. He knew only one way to
take away her pain. He had to erase all memories of himself and
that night from her mind. If he cared for her, he would do it, even
though the thought was killing him. But she had to look at him
first.

“Kate. I want you look at me. Right
now.”

“
No!”
she screamed, beating her fists and kicking her
legs into the bed, as she continued to cry and throw a tantrum
worthy of the most accomplished two year old.

“Kate,” he started, sounding a bit miffed
this time.

With arm strength she didn’t know she had,
Kate flipped herself onto her back, sitting up almost at the same
time, her hair scattered around her head by static electricity in a
Medusa-like halo.

“Get out of my house!” she screamed,
pointing her finger at him, and plopped face-first back into her
pillow.

At Kate’s words, rescinding his invitation
into her home, Julian’s body jerked forward as if the wind had been
knocked out of him. He stood and fought his involuntary movements.
With panicked eyes, he pleaded through clenched teeth, “No, No, No,
No!”

She screamed, “Yes!” into her pillow.

He continued to walk backwards, with halting
steps, out of her bedroom. He tried to grab for the door jamb, but
missed.

With his eyes still on Kate, as she cried
into her pillow, Julian was pulled by an invisible force down the
stairwell backward. Fighting to grab onto the stair railing, his
arms would not lift quite high enough to reach it. His foot slipped
as he missed a step, and his body fell forward, his head slamming
the edge of the step hard. As his body lay face down, something
flipped him over onto his back, gathered his feet together up in
the air, and began to pull him down the staircase, the back of his
head hitting on each step.

As he was dragged through her foyer, Julian
raised his head with great effort.

“Kate...” He forced the words out of his
mouth, knowing she wouldn’t hear him. “Not like this...
Please!”

Fuck,
Julian thought, as he flew out Kate’s front door. He hit her
front lawn with a thud, his body sliding to a stop beside one of
the crepe myrtles she had planted in the spring. Lying on the
ground with Bermuda grass poking in his nose, he realized he had
flipped over, mid-flight, between the door and the wet ground. He
wondered at the power which had forced him out of the house, but it
was not his first time experiencing that particular phenomenon in
the last hundred or so years. The sensations of it still shook him
up, and also reminded him of what he was, as if he could forget.
But it was Kate’s rejection of him that cut the deepest. He had to
get back to her and clear things up.

Julian pushed himself to his hands and knees
and brushed off as much of the mud, grass and leaves he could, from
his black tailored pants and grass-stained shirt. The pants, in all
probability, would launder, but the shirt was beyond any dry
cleaner’s saving. Standing, he walked to the running fountain,
cupping his hands under one of the mouths of the concrete fish,
gathering water in them. After slapping water over his face a few
times, and sticking his head under the spouting mouth to rinse his
hair, he flipped his head back with a snap, sending the water
flying out in all directions. He rubbed his hands over his scruffy
face and then over his scalp, deciding that was as presentable as
he could be, under the circumstances, and turned to face the
house.

He moved closer, not trying to hide his
movements, and stopped midway between the house and the copse of
trees which enclosed the property, to watch and hear the sounds
coming from inside.

“What the hell is she doing now?”

He scratched his head as he stared up at her
window while tapping his foot, considering his options with
caution.

Kate moved into view at the window and
opened it, leaning out and supporting herself with her hands
gripping the sill. Her voice breaking with tears, she yelled, “Why
are you still here? Go away!” During his moments of contemplation,
she had moved past anger, back to tears.

Examining Kate with trepidation, Julian held
his hands out, showing his surrender. “Love, we need to talk. If
you let me, I can explain everything to you. The truth, I swear to
you.”

As he spoke, she closed her eyes and shook
her head, her hair moving left and right. Head down, she said
through blubbering tears, “I have nothing to say to you, you,
you...” Her voice rose to near hysterics as she yelled, “Oh my God!
I don’t even know your name!”

She turned away from the window as she began
screaming insults at herself. “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Why would a
man like that be interested in you? Of course, he’s already
attached. Look at him! He saw a desperate woman who needed to get
laid. They were right, and you know it. Just like your aunt told
you. ‘You’ll never have anyone who truly wants you. They’ll just
want you for what they can take from you, and you are stupid and
gullible enough to believe their lies.’ And I am! Oh God, I am!
Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

In that moment, Julian realized three
things: One, he was mad at Kate because of how she treated herself.
Two, he hadn’t treated her much better by tricking and seducing
her, using her own fantasy against her. Three, he needed to make
his intentions as clear to her as they were to him.