Start Me Up by
BY LYDIA MICHAELS
Filthy. Her mother was right. She was a filthy whore, a temptress, a pervert.
Liberty’s skin still tingled from the nearly scalding shower she’d taken after leaving the pool.
A deep rosy blush seemed burned into her flesh, yet it did nothing to relieve or excoriate the putrid grime running through her veins. She was disgusting.
Why had she allowed Sean to touch her? He was Mason’s friend, a guest in their home. She needed to tell Mason what happened, but feared he would rage at Sean. She couldn’t allow that to happen. Nothing would’ve happened if she weren’t such a dirty girl.
The pan heated and she spread her palm wide over the copper base.
Hotter and hotter the metal grew until her breath hissed through her teeth and her arm trembled.
A sharp ache shot through her flesh, stabbing her somewhere inside where her pain receptors lay.
Liberty jerked her arm away from the stove and cradled her abused palm to her chest as tears stung her eyes.
She took a shuddering breath and moved to pour a splash of olive oil into the searing pan and then dropped three fillets of tilapia where her hand had recently been.
She mixed the spring salad and moved to slice the mangos for the salsa.
Her fingers worked in fast, rote motions that allowed her mind to wander, capably ignoring the stinging palm of her burned hand.
She couldn’t tell Mason, she decided. Would Sean?
Her husband was extremely possessive when it came to her and he always made her safety his highest priority.
Liberty knew she wasn’t in any danger from Sean.
They had just gotten carried away. Like before, she wondered if her mind was exaggerating what had actually happened.
Her mind went back to a different time, a different place.
She lay in the bed of her childhood home, staring as the moon played in the shadows of the curtains and knickknacks along the sill.
She still could recall her heart jolting in her small chest at the sound of the knob turning.
He always appeared so calm and patient at first. The way he touched her hair and ran a finger down her cheek was the act of a caring dad, but he wasn’t her dad.
Her gut twisted as she recalled one evening in particular when Eric had awoken her.
“You okay, cupcake? I heard you crying.”
She hadn’t been crying. She had been sound asleep and woken up from a peaceful dream by the feel of her stepfather’s hand rubbing her leg through her bed covers. At first she trusted him.
Liberty could never recall the exact moment that Eric transcended from good guy to bad guy, but she knew that by the time of this particular memory she was clear on the sort of monster he was. Her jaw locked as she cringed under his touch.
How well he played the role of a concerned, loving parent, so ready to take on the responsibilities of dad for the fatherless child.
He was no father. He was a predator, and he was smarter.
One thousand trapped screams rested in her chest night after night as his visits became more frequent. She wanted to let them all out.
Liberty’s mind jumped to the day she confessed her fears to her mother, the repulsed look in her mother’s eyes as she judged her and called her a liar and a whore.
Liberty had been grounded to her room for two weeks that summer, a room that should have been her sanctuary, but had turned into nothing more than a torture chamber. That was when her childhood crumbled.
It was those two weeks that she learned things no child should know, and she was changed forever. That was when she started to burn herself. The pain outside sometimes equaled the pain within, sometimes took her away and helped her pretend.
Only the evidence of real pain seemed to hold the power to balance her out. She needed to see it, feel it, know it existed, and it had to be strong enough to distract her from all the other hurt inside.
Later that summer she tried locking her door. When school started, she had come home to find the lock gone. Her stepfather made sure she understood she would never lock him out again.
A piercing beep rent the air, and Liberty jolted back to the present.
She turned and opened the oven where a sheet spread with brightly colored summer squash roasted.
Without thinking, she reached in to pull the grilled vegetables out of the oven and hissed, jerking back as her fingers made contact with the hot metal.
“Shit!” she hissed, as the pan clattered down.
Her pain was her least worry. She examined the tips of her fingers and prayed the damage wasn’t too bad.
Mason would think she did it on purpose.
She grabbed an oven mitt with her other hand and pulled the squash out of the oven, setting the sizzling cookie sheet on the countertop and rushing to the sink to treat her burn with cold water.
The pain faded, and she tried not to panic. Her gaze shot to the clock. Mason would be home in a few minutes. Her scalded fingers trembled as she turned the water off and on three more times, then examined the damage. Not too bad. A little pink, a little puffy.
She needed to get a hold of herself. She couldn’t go back to her past. Her life was in the present. It had to be.
When dinner was prepared, she set the table and rushed upstairs to freshen up. She inspected the rooms after her shower. Sean was in Mason’s study with the door closed.
Sitting at her vanity, she twisted and pinned her blond curls high on her head, exposing the long line of her neck.
No earrings today. Her white linen pants hid her figure up to her hips where they fitted to her waist. She threw on a loose-fitting black cowl-neck blouse to drape in voluminous folds.
She fought the urge to run to the third floor and hide in shame.
On her way back downstairs, she quickly passed the now empty study and stepped back to inspect the room.
Magazines were out of place, and the remote control wasn’t perpendicular to Mason’s chair.
Liberty fixed the items and shut the door, opening and closing it twice more before turning away.
When she reached the foyer, she stood on the third tile, nine feet exactly, and folded her hands. Her thumb fondled her burned fingers, and she pressed into the pain. The sharp throb, the pressure, eased her anxiety and helped her focus, helped her pretend that nothing untoward had happened.
But the sound of Mason’s Mercedes pulling up the drive had her heart racing. She needed to calm down. The garage door closed, and she took a deep breath. The knob clicked, and for a moment in time she saw her stepfather, Eric,
walking toward her.
Her mind shook away the frightening image of the ghost of her past and smiled with trembling lips as her husband stepped through the door.
Mason smiled. “Hey, beautiful, how was your day?”
“Good. How was yours?”
He dropped his newspaper on the side table and removed his coat. When he turned, he smiled at her again. “How about a kiss?”
Liberty released her hold on herself and went to him.
Mason looked down at her with loving eyes and cupped the side of her face with gentle hands.
“I missed you,” he whispered as his soft lips pressed into hers.
Smiling, he tenderly licked at her mouth, and some of her tension washed away.
“Did you have fun playing with Sean today?”
Liberty tensed. Images of Sean’s large hand dwarfing her breast played through her mind. Mason pulled back and looked down at her, obviously catching her reaction. “Liberty?”
She fumbled trying to find a reply. “I made grilled tilapia with mango salsa.”
“Sounds perfect. Do I have time to change?”
“Of course.” She took his coat and hung it in the closet. After she gathered his papers, she turned and froze. Sean stood at the top of the high stairs watching them. His eyes seemed to be on her, but also watching Mason. Would he tell?
“Hey, Sean. Enjoy your day?” Mason called as he moved up the stairs.
Sean’s body relaxed as he looked toward her husband. The release of Sean’s gaze catapulted her into action, and she fled to the kitchen. She didn’t need to hear his reply.
Dinner was quiet. Mason held up most of the conversation while she and Sean only offered abrupt, one or two-word replies.
After she cleared the table, she brought out coffee for the boys and excused herself to go clean up the dishes.
When she returned to the dining room, Mason and Sean were both laughing and leaning back in their chairs, seeming at ease.
Mason’s gaze found hers, and he smiled. “You all done, baby?” She nodded. “What do you say we watch a movie? Sean, you want to join us?”
Sean hesitated a moment and sat up. “Ah, you know, I think I’m gonna hit the sack if you don’t mind, but you two have fun.”
“You sure?” Mason asked.
“Yeah. I’ll see you two in the morning.”
When they made their way upstairs, Liberty turned and noticed Sean’s door was tightly closed. Mason accepted the hand that she offered him, the hand that didn’t bear evidence of her earlier perfidy, and led her to the entertainment room.
She curled up on a recliner as Mason set up the movie. It was a sci-fi flick, and Liberty wasn’t really much of a fan of that genre, so she began to daydream.
Halfway through the movie, Mason touched her cheek. “Do you want to go to bed, Lib?”
“The movie’s not over.”
“Yeah, but you aren’t watching it. Where are you?”
“I was just thinking.”
“About what?” he asked softly, no longer watching the screen, his attention solely on her.
“Things I shouldn’t be thinking of.”
“I’m sorry you had a difficult day, Lib. That was my fault. I shouldn’t have made you stay in bed.”
“I wanted to stay. I…I hate that something I enjoyed…can be taken away like that.” She frowned as she tried to find the words to explain how much she hated what she had.