8 #2
“Well, Bridget, and I struggled to make ends meet the first year following Mom’s death.
My sister took the lead on being in charge, working two jobs and juggling the bills.
We’d rob Peter to pay Paul, constantly lying to our creditors to buy us time.
Things like, the check is in the mail but we never mailed it or didn’t put a check in the envelope and mailed it. ”
He snorted. “Sounds like a Roseanne Barr trick.”
“Yeah, I don’t know who that is, but anyways, we were exhausted and emotionally broken. It should’ve been no surprise when we eventually had a major falling out, over a guy, no less.”
“Of course, it’s always a guy.” He rolled his eyes, playfully. I appreciated him trying to keep things light, but I was trying to be serious.
“Shhh! Just listen. Bridget was six years older than me. Bossy and controlling. She had turned into a moody bitch after Mom got sick. I understood where she was coming from. She’d been scared, like me. Caring for a sick mother is hard and it depleted us.”
“I’m sorry about your mother.” Toby took my hand. “What’d she have?”
“Breast cancer.” A pang in my chest made me suck in a breath. Toby was now the second person I’d told what type of cancer she had. Landon had been the first. Usually, I just said, she had cancer and died , if I mentioned her.
I rarely ever gave specifics about my previous life and preferred it that way. There wasn’t anything good to share so why talk about it?
“Damn, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“Thank you.” I shook off the growing heaviness of the conversation and continued.
“Bridget’s incessant nagging and condescending attitude became more than I could take.
We were stressed to the max and fearful we wouldn’t be able to pay the rent.
So, of course, my sister took matters into her own hands and started turning tricks. She didn’t even consult me first.”
I exhaled a deep breath and fidgeted with my fingers.
This story wasn’t exactly easy to tell, but that could be because this was only the second time I’d told it.
I was the type of person who left the past in the rearview mirror and only looked forward.
But the people I loved, Landon and Toby, should know who I was and where I came from.
Opening up like this was a huge step for me. A massively huge step.
“Men I’d never seen before just appeared at our door. They came and went, at all hours of the day. Sometimes she’d have two in her room at once.”
I paused, noticing Toby’s uneasy expression. He was from a good Christian family, so I was sure hearing all this shocked him. Then again, maybe not. He’d told me about his adventures with multiple partners. I was probably being hypercritical of myself and thinking the worst.
“Honestly though, I thought it was a brilliant idea to make a lot of money in a short amount of time, until one of them roughed her up.”
“Your sister was a hooker?” Toby asked.
“Yes, but she preferred to be called escort .” I popped my shoulders, then went on with my story.
“Times were tough back then. But one night, I found her bruised and battered after being out with my friends. The stubborn mule refused to go to the hospital to make sure nothing was broken. She just kept at it, but the confidence she radiated at the beginning slowly diminished.”
“Damn, that sounds really hard, sweetheart.” He put his hand on my knee and gave it a gentle squeeze.”
“It was hard,” I told him honestly. “A month later, I was propositioned by one of her clients, a businessman from Iowa. He came to Cleveland twice a month and was bored with my sister. He told me he wanted more than sex. A little romance, a flirty build-up to the act, and would pay me five hundred dollars for the night. I almost passed out, feeling like Julia Roberts, from my favorite movie, Pretty Woman .”
“You’re prettier than Julia.”
“You’re such a charmer and so was Bryan Callahan. Bryan was attractive, clean cut, and he obviously had a lot of money. I couldn’t believe he wanted to be with me, an inexperienced, unrefined nineteen-year-old.”
“Nineteen? How old was he?”
“Thirty-two.” But Bryan had a baby face and looked much younger. He was also a health food junky and worked out religiously.
“Fuck, Lib.”
“Let me finish, please.”
“Continue.” He waved his hand in front of me and got comfortable on the bed.
I took the spot next to him and resumed my story. “So, of course, I said yes. I wasn’t so young and dumb to reject his offer. We desperately needed the money.”
“I get it. Desperation makes us do things we wouldn’t normally do.”
“Mhm. Exactly.” I nodded, but if Bryan had been an old, smelly man, I wouldn’t have agreed. “Bryan wined and dined me. He treated me better than any guy I’d ever gone out with, and the sex had been ah -mazing.”
Toby growled in his throat but remained, mostly silent.
“Bryan taught me to actively participate, instead of being still on the bed while he fucked me. I also learned to give him mind-numbing blowjobs, those were his words.”
“Sounds like a real swell guy,” he muttered sarcastically.
I ignored him and went on. “He also gave me my first orgasm, which had taken a lot of effort on his part and patience. I couldn’t relax easily, but once I did, I could orgasm without him, just by imagining the things he did to me.
It was like a whole new world had opened up to me!
” Phew! I was glad to get all that off my chest.
“He sounds ah-mazing.” He mocked me but I knew his attitude was born out of jealousy. He never liked me being with multiple men. There was a little possessiveness in him but he never once tried to control me.
It was my life, my choices. So, I didn’t let him bother me. “I’d known better than to brag to Bridget that Bryan preferred me over her. She had no idea I was with him when he came to Cleveland on business.”
For three months, I’d kept our encounters a secret. But I knew she’d eventually find out. It just came sooner than I’d hoped. I felt myself being transported back to that day, the day my relationship with my sister had changed forever…
“Where did you get this?” Bridget asked in a tart tone.
I turned away from the kitchen sink, where I’d been scrubbing the grimy dishes for the past half an hour, to see what my sister was asking about. One look at the gorgeous red dress Bryan had bought me months ago, for our second date, and I knew hell was about to break loose.
“You were in my closet?” Deflect, deflect, deflect. “If you needed something, you could’ve asked instead of helping yourself.”
Bridget raised an annoyed brow. “Where did you get this? It’s expensive and we can’t afford it.”
“It was a gift.” I knew we couldn’t afford such luxuries. Again, I wasn’t stupid but maybe I was for keeping it in my closet. I could’ve hid it better, like in a suitcase, but I didn’t want it to get ruined. It was made of silk and paying for dry cleaning wasn’t in the budget.
“From who?”
Why did I say it was a gift?
Of course she would ask who gave it to me. Face palm.
Maybe I should just come clean? It wasn’t like her and Bryan were a couple.
She didn’t love him or anything. She was with a half a dozen different men every week.
Wouldn’t she just be happy I was getting paid for sex like her?
Besides, she thought Bryan had moved on since he hadn’t called her in a few months.
“I’m waiting for an answer, Lydia.”
“What? You’re not my mother. I don’t answer to you.” I slipped off the rubber dish gloves and threw them in the sink.
“But we’re sisters and we’re trying to survive together.” She had a point. “I just want to know who. I’m not sure what all this drama is about.”
My thoughts exactly. “Bryan gave it to me.” He’d also gifted me a spa day before our second night together. And requested my pussy be freshly waxed so he could eat me out all night. That was a night I’d never forget and one I’d never tell her about.
“Bryan? Bryan, who?”
I could see the wheels turning in her head. She was piecing it all together but wanted to hear it straight from the bitch’s mouth.
I plucked the dress out of her hand. “Bryan Callahan.”
“How dare you!” She came at me but I dodged her open hands, fearing she might choke me to death. “He was my man! My high-dollar man! You greedy little bitch!”
I screamed and ran into my bedroom, locking the door. There I scrambled to put a plan together on how to get out of this mess.
My sister pounded on the door. “Open up! Or I’ll force my way in!”
I believed she would. “Not until you calm down.” I scanned the room, but the only solution I found was jumping out of the window.
Why had our mother picked the second floor?
Because winters in Ohio could be very cold and the second floor was a primo spot.
Heat would rise from the first floor and warm us. Mom always knew how to save us money.
“I’ll calm down after I’ve beaten your ass and you give me Bryan back!”
“Shouldn’t going back to you be his choice? Like him asking me out, because he was bored with you?” Okay, that wasn’t nice to say, but it was the truth.
“That’s it! I’m getting the ax!”
I darted around my room, filling my largest tote bag and suitcase. The scary truth was we had an ax. My mom bought it as a weapon to protect us. We lived in a rough area and guns scared her.
A loud WHACK made me scream. The blade of the ax was stuck in my bedroom door. The sight of it gave off strong vibes of that scary movie, The Shining , and Bridget was playing Jack Nicholson.
“I’m coming for you! You greedy cunt!”
“Wow, not cool calling me the C-word!”
“Hey, if the shoe fits, cunt!” Bridget worked the ax out of the door. At this rate, she’d be in my room in no time.