Chapter Eight Loretta and Jasper
He thinks I’m in the shower, but it’s just running while I lean against the door, nerves falling apart.
I hear him talk to Ari. I trust him with her. I trust the man who can break a poker in half with my tiny, helpless baby—and he’s giving her self-defense tips and then making dinner for us.
My body is a traitor. I’m still married. I still love Matt—in some ways. But I know now, like the way you know things when you’ve had time to process what you couldn’t understand in the moment, that I’ve been falling out of love for a long, long time. I feel like a failure.
So I should be miserable and heartbroken, and I am.
But why am I also... Why is my body also acutely aware of feelings I thought motherhood had killed?
Leaky boobs. Saggy tits. Floppy belly. I can count on one hand the times Matt has wanted to have sex with me since getting cleared post-partum. The comments he made about my body turned me off in ways I can’t even describe. It was a combination of scorn from him and shock from me.
I made you this precious baby, with this body, through weeks of pain and nausea, and you insult it?
No, a-hole, you can’t use it anymore.
I’m probably just having a little gratitude overcorrection with Jasper. I’m sure he didn’t look at me with a little bit of yearning. I’m sure he’s not imagining me as part of his happy family, just one that he’s borrowing, trying it on for size.
But my confused body doesn’t know that. It hums and throbs in places that I thought I was done with. My hands wander with the new loofah Jasper so thoughtfully provided.
I remind myself that everything used to feel this good with Matt, too, that it looked so perfect, that I moved too fast.
You didn’t. He wasn’t ready; that was your mistake. A mistake he compounded.
I think about Jasper. Already established. Gorgeous home. Secure job. Right priorities. Older than me, but not old enough that it’s wrong to find my hand wandering down between my legs, tentative, like a visitor who might be turned away angrily.
I’m not. Things feel wet in a way that has nothing to do with water, and my fingers dance and slide, just the way I like them, not the way Matt thinks I should like them.
I bet Jasper listens. He doesn’t think of women as something to own, a possession you can use like you want. Yeah, because he’s not insecure. He doesn’t need to prove he’s the boss. He radiates something... Big D energy? Alpha male? But not at all in the boastful, braggy way.
Confusion forces comparisons. I remind myself there’s nothing between Jasper and me, and that it would be weird, wrong, and way too soon.
This is just a fantasy. I’m allowed to have those again. I haven’t had any in a long, long time that didn’t involve sleeping through the night or a day without yelling or snide remarks.
If Jasper is the subject of some thoughts while I’m vigorously rubbing the most neglected area on my body, well, I don’t think that’s so terrible.
I come, suddenly, knees going weak, making me let out a surprised laugh.
I think if Jasper knew he was the subject of my fantasies, he’d take it in stride. Probably blush and shrug and say something Jasper-like, something like “Glad I could help.”
I look in the steaming mirror. It’s officially been one day since I ran away to start a new life. A better life.
“You look better already,” I whisper to my reflection. “You’re going to be okay. Going to survive. Be smarter. You’re already learning what not to do again.”
Never, ever think bad boys are sexy.
I think about Jasper again as I towel off.
But helpful ones...
My weak legs remind me that helpful guys are the stuff my new fantasies are made of.
“LORETTA?” I WHISPER at the door when I go to her room a few hours after dinner. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to help put Ari to bed, but I can’t get spoiled.
She whips open the door, looking cute as a button in the red velour sweatsuit set I picked out. I figured it was soft and basic, and well... I know how good she looks in red. I bought a purple and a navy one, too, but I think this one is my favorite.
“I just realized—you never went into work!” Loretta hisses, looking aghast.
“I called in while Ari and I were making the spaghetti. I really do need to go in tomorrow, though, because my three mentee nights are coming up on the 4th, 5th, and 6th. I’ve been thinking of some options.
After the morning segment, I can drive you to Rochester.
Or we can get your parents to come here.
There are local options, too. Alban and Harper Wymark and their two kids live in one of the McMansions, and you can stay with them while I’m busy.
Or you can go hang out with Rhea and Manny at Manny’s Automotive.
You think I’m strong? Manny and his helper, Lazarus, would rip a car in half.
Or... You can come with me to the studio.
You can stay here alone, of course, but. ..”
“I’ll come with you,” she says quickly.
I nod, and I’m happy when she steps closer. Through the sweet aroma of the vanilla and eucalyptus stress-relieving body wash and shampoo set I ordered for her, I smell something else. Arousal.
Or maybe not. I could be just wishing for things.
“Thanks! You’ll love it. It’s a really nice little studio. Um. During the nights when the mentees cover, I typically pull all-nighters downstairs in my ‘man cave.’ I do— I do things you can’t interrupt.”
“Like live interview recordings and meetings with people in other time zones?” Loretta nods seriously.
More like Interview with a Werewolf, I think, but I nod back. “If you want to stay somewhere else during those three nights, I can put you up in a hotel.”
“Oh, because Ari’s crying might disturb the recording?”
“No, no. The room is soundproof.” Well, that’s a good excuse for all the padding in there. I’ll have to put some equipment down there tonight, just in case she looks. It feels wrong and dirty to keep secrets from her.
It feels worse to scare her. She won’t believe in werewolves, and she certainly won’t believe we can be harmless with the right precautions.
I know that look. That’s the look my dad has about his remote-control airplanes and model trains. Is that room off-limits?”
“N-no. Just for those couple days a month,” I explain.
“It also has a lock on the inside of the door, so once I go down to the basement, I can lock the door, and then no one can wander in accidentally. I—I thought when I bought the house that I’d be married with kids by now, and you know how kids will burst in on anyone, at any time. ”
“I do.”
“You can go see it—but right now it’s just very beige, and there are just some blankets, snacks, and stuff in there.”
Loretta pauses. “You know, this is how horror movies start,” she tries to laugh, but fails.
“I just want you to see it so you know I don’t have secrets from you, and so you know what’s in the house.
Because I hope you’ll be staying here for a while,” I clear my throat.
“I know, you get on the phone with your mom and dad and talk to them while you poke around. That way, if I suddenly turn ‘horror movie’ on you, someone would know, and they have my address.”
Loretta fixes me with a look that I don’t fully understand.
Something appraising, critical, and with a little hint of—admiration?
“You know, I trust you. I’m still going to do it, but I trust you.
I’m going to do that because it’s smart, and because I have a daughter to think of.
I can’t become a statistic. Well, not another one. ”
“You want to carry a kitchen knife or something?”
“No, because that’s how your horror movie would start. The pretty women who look innocent are deadly, like those creepy baby dolls.”
We share a shudder. “I don’t like those old porcelain dolls,” I make a face. “They just look like they’re—”
“Waiting to come to life and take your soul?”
“Exactly.”
Loretta takes her phone from her pocket and dials her parents. “I’ve called them like five times today,” she says sheepishly.
“Lucky them.” I hurry down the stairs ahead of her.
The basement is semi-finished, and my “recording room” is in the finished section.
It’s like a toasted marshmallow inside with thick padded walls, and high shelves that hold water and beef jerky.
I go down before sunset and get ready, taking my clothes off so I don’t shred them, trying to force down an extra dose of wolfsbane extract tonic that keeps the worst of the feral symptoms at bay, and curling up in some of the half-shredded blankets on the ground.
There’s a sturdy futon that I’ve had since college, the thing I collapse onto when I transform back into a human at sunrise.
Then I drink the water, choke down the beef jerky, and stagger upstairs.
“What? No, he’s showing me his basement because I’m going to be his housekeeper, but this is where he does some recording work.
He’s on the WPNR station, Daddy. I don’t think you can get it in Rochester.
Maybe online.” Loretta has arrived, just as I notice tufts of black and gray fur dotting the floor.
I have a handheld vacuum down here. I usually use it, and I usually remember to take the half-shredded blankets up and toss ‘em in the washer. Of all the months to be a slob...
In my defense, Pine Ridge is frantically busy in October. “Uh, all my stuff is still at my office at the studio. Right now, it just looks like a really crappy studio apartment,” I try to joke.
“It’s very basic. But not at all serial killer-y.” Loretta sounds relieved. “Oh, did you have a cat?”
Of course, she spots the fur.
And I’m saved from a total lie by the fact that, yes, when I was a child, I did have a pet cat. “Yes. Miss Tiggy. From Beatrix Potter. I mean, not exactly, but when I was a kid, I thought Mrs. Tiggy Winkle was a cat, even though the book clearly said hedgehog.”