Chapter Seven
Cyn
Are you sure?
This is the third time Trini has texted me today. I pause flipping through TV channels to answer her.
I’m very sure. Leave it. I’m taking a month off.
I think Beau’s dick broke me. It’s so big it must’ve punctured some part of me that I was able to keep my past bottled up in. It’s all his fucking fault. I never should’ve gone back that second night.
The tears spill like they have multiple times a day.
I’ve gone seven years without crying, and now I can’t scroll social media because every little video has me welling up.
I literally sobbed over parents surprising their kid by showing up in their semester abroad country.
A gender reveal cake showing pink through champagne flutes.
A service dog that could sense its owner’s epileptic seizures. This is not me.
And why would Beau say he needs to see me again? Obviously, he likes fucking the mysterious Cyndi. But he sounded so sincere. So adamant. And he’s kept emailing Trini to set up dates. Only he wasn’t stipulating no talking anymore. So of course I had to turn them down.
The only problem is, now I don’t want to see any of my other regular johns either.
Beau has broken my pussy. And my head. I don’t want another stupid penis in me, taking away the memory of Beau Bradley fucking me so hard he rewired my brain.
He’s all I think about. His skin was so damn soft.
His muscles were so damn hard. And the way he’d kissed my jaw—
The ringing of my phone startles me, and I tap answer without looking.
“Trini, I told you I—”
“Gracyn,” my mom’s voice cuts through my Beau-induced brain fog, and I almost drop the phone. “Gracyn Lara, are you there?”
“You know that’s not my name anymore.”
“Well, it is to me,” she snaps, already angry, already chiseling away at my boundaries.
“Hello, Mom. What do you want?” I roll my eyes and turn her on speakerphone, already scrolling through my phone, trying to project a level of nonchalance I don’t feel.
My back is tense, my hackles are up. Peter’s face hovers in the back of my mind.
His filthy fingers pressing at my mouth as he pulls at my pajamas.
His spit that dried and stank on my skin.
Be a good girl and I’ll never tell. Stick out your tongue. Stop crying.
“Can’t a mother just call her daughter?” Nadine stopped being my mother the moment I realized she had continually chosen a man over me.
She left a job with normal working hours to move in with Peter after only knowing him for one month.
She pulled me out of a charter school I’d won a lottery to attend and moved me across the state in the middle of the school year.
Then I barely saw her after that. She knew something wasn’t right.
She would’ve seen the torn clothes. The bloodstains on my purple sheets when I was fifteen and he moved past simply touching me.
She was a nurse for Christ’s sake; she was trained to recognize signs of abuse. She was a mandated reporter.
“Stop pretending,” I snap. “You called me from a random number because you know I blocked you. We haven’t talked in six months. What is it?”
I can practically hear her teeth grinding before she says, “Peter is coming up for parole. There’s a very good chance he’ll get out. He’s served his time. His house is waiting for him. He’s repentant. We— I feel like it would be a nice gesture if you showed up. Wrote a letter— ”
My chest heaves, and the sound that comes out is either a laugh or a sob; I can’t tell. I stand and pace as if she could see my nonverbal actions through the phone.
“Stop it. Stop. I will never, ever do anything to help that man. How can you defend him— the things he did to me— the things they found on his computer— how many other kids—? What is wrong with you?” I can’t keep the tears out of my voice.
How dare she? How dare she call me when I’m at my lowest, as if she could sense my weakness?
“You ungrateful little brat. I took care of you— raised you alone with no thanks. None of that was his. I tried to explain it to you. His computer was hacked, and dirty cops framed him. They do things like that all the time! Set up good men; it’s a government plot, Gracyn.
They want to emasculate men, so the feminazi’s can take over,” she’s ranting now, her voice a mechanical, distorted version of my mother’s.
I can’t take it— this radicalized person she’s turned into.
She’s talking about online forums and groups she’s in and all the things “they” don’t want you to know.
“Mom, Mom!” I interrupt her, swallowing down any hiccups and trying not to let my voice quiver.
“Even if all that is true— even if I believe everything you say, Peter molested me. He crawled into my bed when I was thirteen. H-he touched me. Did things to me. He lied to you. He threatened and manipulated me. He raped me. Over and over.”
“Did he though?” she asks slowly, as if I’m stupid. As if I don’t remember every single fucking awful detail. As if I’m not all fucked up now because of it.
“What? You know he did. There was video evidence.”
I can almost hear her shrug as she says, “I saw it, Gracyn. I saw a seventeen-year-old with the body of a woman. Face covered in makeup. What red-blooded man could resist a young, fertile girl? It’s an animal instinct.”
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I say through tears. This woman is a monster. She’s no protector. And I never want to hear her voice again.
“It’s the truth. I know it’s hard to hear. I have people you can talk to, people who can explain. If you’d just— ”
“Shut up! Shut up! Don’t ever call me again! Don’t contact me.”
“Calm d—”
I hang up and fall to the couch, sobbing in a wet pile.
I don’t get up to shower; I don’t go to the gym or drink my protein.
I just cry for Gracyn Moreno, the little girl whose mother failed her.
Who was abused by her stepfather. Beau was the only one who cared.
He was the one who stopped it all. Then I pretended he didn’t exist for seven years.
“Big news in Seattle sports today.” The local news channel, at low volume, catches my attention hours later.
I forgot the TV was even on, so lost was I in my own wallowing.
“Sources have just announced that star running back Beau Bradley has just been traded. He’ll be leaving San Francisco and coming home. ”
“That’s right, Jim, he’s a hometown boy, isn’t he?”
“Yes, Claire, he graduated from the South Seattle suburb of Cherry Hill and was drafted straight out of university. I’m sure his family and friends are very happy to hear this news.”
I can’t take my eyes off Beau Bradley’s close-up on my TV screen.
Hard jaw, glaring eyes, raised fists with blunt fingers digging into the football.
I know how those hands feel. How his cheek feels rubbing against my bare skin.
How those eyes soften and grow drowsy after orgasm.
Am I really the only one who’s seen him like that?
My tears slowly dry up, and I fall asleep staring out at the skyline, the stadium's lights bright well into the night.
Days pass monotonously. I force myself to rise early.
I can’t find my birth control packet, so I call in a new prescription.
I go for hours-long walks. I pick up my flowers and lattes.
I wash my hair every other day, unwilling to fall into the habits that my days consisted of when I was trying to deter Peter.
I check in with Trini but don’t accept any work, even when she says Mr. Graves has requested me.
I don’t know if I’ll be able to talk myself into fucking again. I wish I’d never seen Beau.
That’s a damn lie.
He’s all I think about. I touch my pussy alone in bed every night. I masturbate regularly for the first time, to the memory of the taste of his cock in my mouth, his rough thrusting in my pussy, the nearly unbearable stretch in my ass.
To make my life even more abnormal, now that I know he’s back in Seattle, I spend all my time searching the crowded streets for him.
I turn every corner expecting to see his well-favored face.
I’m hyperaware of any man over six feet, desperate to see him but also dreading it. What if he recognizes me?
Worse, what if he doesn’t?
A month somehow passes in this haze. I know I need to get back to work.
I have goals, and I can’t keep fucking forever.
I need to pay off this condo. I need to diversify my investments into safe holdings.
A nest egg that will eventually earn money for me.
Then I can figure out what I really want to do with the rest of my life.
“Trini? I’m ready.” I don’t whisper; I speak loud and clear.
I’m standing in front of my vanity mirror, freshly showered, a stark white towel wrapped around my body.
My face is clear of makeup. I’m due for lip filler and a trim at the salon.
I haven’t worn fake lashes or nails since the last night with Beau. But I’m past that now.
Welcome back to the real world, Cyndi.
“I’ve got someone who wants dinner and a night in a hotel this Saturday. Is three days enough time?” Trini sounds concerned but professional. This is just what I need to forget about Beau. Get over someone by getting under someone. And get paid.
“I’ll be ready,” I say. I tamp down the urge to ask if he’s still emailing her about me.
“Okay. Good. Welcome back, honey.”
“Thank you.” We chat for a few more minutes, and after letting me know she’ll send me the details later, I hang up.
Time to get my shit together.
Dropping my towel, I scan my body for any imperfections that a John might notice. I rub on a medium self-tanner and sit down naked at my vanity. The bulbs all shine brightly, and I narrow my eyes for a moment. Didn’t one of them burn out a while ago? Weird. I must be misremembering.
Just to get back in the swing of things, I brush on primer and begin contouring my face, going full glam. I even glue on lashes and straighten my hair into a silken curtain. I could grace the cover of a magazine.
By the time I’m finished, my tanner has dried, and I pull on a sexy black set of bra and panties. They are lined in silk ribbon and sheer everywhere else. My nipples are dark circles through the tempting material. What would Beau think if he saw me in this?
I purse my stained lips, internally vowing to stop thinking about him. I need to do something. Get out. Maybe get a gin and tonic at my favorite bar on the Hill.
Forgoing any jewelry, I grab a black sheath dress and drop it silkily over my head. With a little spin before the mirror, I slide on my platform heels and grab a clutch. I’ll walk. It’ll do me good.
I only practice my sweet face twice before taking a deep breath and stepping out into the hall. I hear the door click shut behind me. I turn toward the elevator, shaking my long hair over one shoulder. My foot lifts to take my first step.
A black-gloved hand slides over my mouth, clamping down before I can scream, and a solid arm wraps around my center, pinning both arms to my sides. All the self-defense classes I ever took be damned, because I feel myself easily lifted into the air before a single kick can land.
All I can think as I struggle and scream futilely into the hard palm is fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.