Family Dinner; Part Twelve

His mother drew him aside while the rest of the family gathered in the living room and den.  Following into Jonah’s study after her he moved to close the door part of the way.  Before he did, he watched Maggie for a moment, seated in the center of the couch, flanked by the twins as they laughed and pointed at baby pictures of Grey in the photo album Velvet had just gifted her with.

She still looked somewhat overwhelmed by the whole situation, and what was that other emotion?  Guilt, probably.  He recognized it because he felt it too.  Pulling the wool over everybody’s eyes like this.  Making believe they were a loving husband and wife and allowing everyone to act like fools about it.

Jonah crossed Grey’s vision, coming from the sideboard with a ginger ale in hand.  They locked eyes.  Besides Maggie and himself, Jonah was the only other member of the family who knew why Grey’d married her.  And Jonah had been a fucking sweetheart all night, deftly helping Grey and Maggie dodge and skirt the seemingly ceaseless barrage of awkward questions peppered at them from all angles.  Grey was still furious with him over the money, but since Maggie turned out to be the kind of woman who couldn’t be bought-off he supposed it didn’t matter much afterall.  He nodded just slightly at his Dad and Jonah responded in kind.

“Honey?”  His mother half-whispered. He took a breath and turned.  She had that look.  That very ‘Velvet Delaney’ look about her.  That glowing, emotional, idealistic sort of hopeful radiance that made people love her.  Despite himself he smiled at it.  Though he knew it was likely something he’d have to grin and bear, something he’d have to pretend to be enthusiastic about to appease her.

“Thanks again for dinner.” he said, crossing to her and bending to give her a kiss on the cheek.  She was such an angel. And, good Christ, did she ever seem to adore Maggie.  He rolled his eyes just thinking about the way she’d fawned all over the girl for the entire evening.  By the time he straightened up, though, his face was composed again and he was smiling pleasantly.

“I have something for you.  Well.  And for Maggie, really, I suppose.”  She giggled.

“No, Mum, you and Dad have done so much already, really, no more.”  He was sick of pretending gratitude for things he could give two shits about.  That fucking honeymoon?  The Cottage? Now the money for a house?  Plus his dad had mentioned something about freeing up the trust fund early, or at least making sure Grey was covered until graduation came around and his money was at last his money.  Fuck.  They were entirely too generous.

“Well, yes, no, but, oh—“  She grinned and slipped something small from Jonah’s top desk drawer.  Good God, she’d planned this out, given it a lot of fucking thought.  She held out a breathtaking princess cut diamond, Grey guessed 2 ½ to 3 karats, set in platinum.

“Jesus Christ.”

“Grey.”  His mother tittered, lifting his hand and pressing it into his palm. 

He didn’t say anything more, because all he could think to say involved harder expletives than ‘Jesus’ or ‘Christ’. 

After a moment, Velvet, never comfortable with quiet, rushed to fill the silence.  “I noticed Maggie didn’t have an engagement ring, and, well, that’s probably because it was all so spur-of-the-moment and in-the-heat-of-passion that you two eloped!”  His eyes were glued to the flawless diamond.  It must be worth a fortune.   “And had I known you were even thinking about settling down, well, I would have given this to you before the marriage! I realize this is a little backwards--”

“Mum, I don’t want my mother picking out my bride’s engagement ring.”  He said as kindly as he possibly could.  It wasn’t that she didn’t have impeccable taste, it’s that it was fairly emasculating.  He huffed and held the ring back out to her.  Besides, he didn’t want to get his ‘wife’ any ring of any kind.  She had the gold fucking band and that would be the end of it.  He wasn’t going to play these games.

“Oh, no, no, of course—“ she said, her voice changing.  “But this belongs to you.”  She held her hands up and refused to take the ring back from Grey.

He scrunched his eyebrows and looked at her.  “Pardon?”

A melancholy smile flashed over her face and her pale green eyes welled with emotion.  “That was my engagement ring.”  She stated, her voice a little wistful.

Grey’s eyes went automatically to her left ring finger where the more modest tear-drop diamond he’d always known her to wear sat alongside her white-gold band.  And then he understood.  He stared at the princess cut monster again and felt every urge to drop it.

“I don’t want anything from that man.”  He said, trying to keep the ferocity from his voice; he didn’t want to frighten his mother.

“But—“  Velvet looked crestfallen.  “It isn’t about him.”  She explained.  “This ring, in my mind, is about you.”  She searched his eyes but he was stony.  “I’ve saved it for you, for when you finally found the one.”  She whispered, a single tear slipping down her cheek.

Grey pressed his lips together and wanted to curse.  He couldn’t stand it when his mother was upset.  “I’m sorry Mum, and thank you, the sentiment is beautiful, but—“  He took a breath.  There was no way he was going to put this ring on Maggie’s finger.  Even if the marriage was every bit the sham his mother’s had been.  “Every time I’d look at it all I’d be able to think about was what that man did to you.”  He finished passionately and fixed his eyes on the floor.  He didn’t want to watch more tears.  He pushed the ring further toward her and at last she took it from him with trembling fingers.

He shoved his hands in his pockets and waited for her to speak.  Waited for the signal that it was safe to look up once again.

“Your father thought you might feel like that.”  Velvet said in a tremulous voice.

Grey sighed and shrugged.  Fucking Jonah—poor fucking sap.  He wondered how much it had cost the man to allow his wife this little fantasy, how much it had hurt him to have her keep this remnant of her first marriage and save it up as some symbol of Grey’s birthright.  “I am sorry, that you’ve been saving it all this time.”  He told her, a finality edging the words.

Before he could remove his hands from his pockets she’d wrapped him in a fierce hug.  “Don’t you apologize, Grey Delaney.”  She said, her voice strong despite the sob he could hear welling up underneath it.  “That was probably the sweetest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

He struggled to pull his hands free of his pockets to return the hug, feeling awkward and shackled by her slim but surprisingly vise-like arms.  He rolled his eyes and furrowed his brow.  He believed he could think of a lot sweeter things he’d said to her over the years, but he guessed he understood.

“I want you to know that I don’t regret any of it, with him, with Vaughan, because you are the best thing that ever happened to me.”  She whispered against his chest.  His heart lurched and he had to swallow hard and blink rapidly.   He knew he was her favorite, people say mothers favor sons and he was the only boy, but the best thing that ever happened to her?  He almost felt guilty about that.

“Mum—“

She let him go and quickly wiped the wetness from her cheeks.  “Shh.”  She said and giggled shortly.  “Don’t tell anyone else I said that.”  She joked shakily, and he laughed once in response.  He screwed up enough courage to meet her eyes, now that she was teasing and laughing at herself.  But he found she wasn’t looking at him. 

She was looking at her left ring finger.  He heard her suck in a deep breath and watched as she slowly slipped the teardrop shaped diamond from her finger, very carefully, very lovingly, and she lifted it to her lips, then held it out to him.

He took a step back.  “No.”  He said, hardly more than a whisper.  That ring meant too much.  “That makes even less sense.”  He told her with a little laugh.  “Give that to one of the girls.”  He said, glancing from where she held it out to him to her face and back.

She smiled, though a frown pulled the corners down.  “Don’t be silly.”  She said, but her voice hitched.  “We only have one son.”  She said heavily.

He ran a hand through his hair and blew an exhale through his lips.  He shook his head.  “It doesn’t feel right.”  He said, cursing his legs for shaking.  His Mom and Dad’s marriage was beautiful.  It was as close to perfect as Grey believed any real-life marriage could get.   Even with the screwing around his mom still did with her ex, and even with whatever the fuck his dad had been doing last weekend when he’d had the house to himself, even despite all that—because sex was sex and nobody understood that better than Grey—so even despite that business, their marriage was loving and solid and committed, and good and true.  He would feel like a fucking asshole if he gave that ring to the woman he’d been blackmailed into marrying.

“Why not?”  She asked earnestly.  “Your Dad gave this to me on the day you were born.”  She told him, a sweet smile curving her lips and a far-away look pulling her eyes to some distant memory over his shoulder.

He hadn’t known that.  The impact of it hit him like a freight train.  He felt it almost like getting the wind knocked out of him.  His eyes welled unexpectedly, and his knees went weak, and for some reason he couldn’t really draw a proper breath.  He moved to the desk and sat on the edge of it, one leg hooked over the corner, the other extended straight, anchoring him to the ground.  He watched his mother for a long moment.  “Why?”  He asked.  Though he thought he knew his Dad well enough to guess.

She sighed and walked toward one of the windows and looked out in the direction of the cottage, though it wasn’t quite visible from the study.  “He really should have waited—I was still married to your, to your, Vaughan.”  She said.  “But he did it anyway.”  He heard her sigh as if it were the most romantic thing in the world to poach another guy’s wife.  “He said we were a family and he wanted to spend the rest of his life making us happy.”

Grey’s Adam’s apple bobbed and his nose twitched.  He’d never heard this.  They hadn’t married for another three years.  “Why the long engagement?”  He asked.  He’d wondered it before.

“I was afraid.”  She said simply, turning from the window and facing him.

They locked eyes and he gave her a soft smile.  “Of Dad?”  He was the opposite of Vaughan in every way he could think of, what was there to be afraid of?

“Of making a mistake.”  She confessed.  “I loved your Dad from the minute I laid eyes on him but your, but Vaughan—“

Grey held up a hand and she stopped.  He didn’t want to discuss anything more of Vaughan Grey and she understood.  They fell into a silence and Grey heard the bubbling, overlapping conversations from the den.  The sounds of a happy family.  He wondered how Maggie was faring.  Not that he should care.  But he knew he wouldn’t be thrilled to be abandoned in the thick of her relatives all-by-his-lonesome for this long.

“He asked you for permission.”  His mother said in a fond voice.

Grey cocked an eyebrow.  “I’m sorry?”

She sighed warmly.  “He held you, you were so small!  And he told me ‘this is between us men’,” She giggled at the memory.  “And he asked you if you would consent to him marrying your mother.”  She sighed again, twisting the ring in her fingers adoringly.  “You made a little sound, and we were both so surprised!” She laughed, “And then he pulled the ring from his pocket.”  She lifted it to her lips again.

Grey was quiet.  His eyes had welled up again and he felt like a fucking pussy.  What the fuck was wrong with him all of a sudden?

“And he told me, ‘Velvet I know you aren’t ready to marry me yet, and I understand, but I want you to know there’s nothing more I want to do with my life than stay by your side and be a family and make you happy, and I’ll wait forever for you’…”  She trailed off and Grey looked at her expectantly, blinking the moisture from his eyes.  What a fucking sap his dad was. 

Velvet was looking past Grey again, but this time her eyes were here in the present.  Grey turned over his shoulder to see Jonah, who’d slipped in quietly and was standing with his arms crossed, leaning up against the wall of the study looking sadder than Grey had ever seen him.

“You made me a dad and a husband, son.”  He said quietly.  “The rest is semantics.”

Grey sniffed and ran both hands through his hair before rising from his seat on the desk.  “Thank you both, but I’d rather not take that ring.”  He looked at Jonah.  He heard his mother’s little inhalation behind him and silently he begged his Dad to help him, communicated his desperation with his eyes.

Behind the glasses Jonah blinked once and then turned to his wife.  “Choosing that ring was very important to me, dearest, and I think Grey wants to take his time and find the perfect one for his wife.”  Grey closed his eyes and thanked his Dad wordlessly before turning to smile charmingly at his mother. 

“Your advice and expertise will be most welcome.”  He assured her smoothly.

Velvet tilted her head to the side.  “You’re sure?”

“Thank you—Both—Yes, I’m sure.”  He crossed the short distance to where his mother stood, somewhat disappointed and adrift.  “That belongs on your finger.”  He said, and kissed her cheek softly.

He strode toward the study door and paused for just a moment when he reached Jonah.  He wanted to thank him but found himself unwilling to do it.  Instead quirked his lips in a small, arrogant smile and departed the study. 

As he strode into the den he heard the door click softly behind him and wondered just what Jonah would say to his mother.  Then Maggie looked up from the photo album on her lap and her relief at seeing him manifested in a tentative smile.

Before he could control himself he smiled back in answer.  Son of a bitch.  He wished the woman weren’t so fucking likeable.  He forced the smile into a scowl and crossed to the sideboard. 

“What are Mum and Dad doing in there?”  Viola asked him in a whisper, meeting him at the sideboard and looking at the door to Jonah’s study suspiciously.

Grey got himself a tumbler and reached for Jonah’s best scotch.  “Fucking, probably.”  He answered in a bored sort of deadpan.

Viola’s scowl was more fearsome than his own.  “No.”  She said adamantly.

Grey studied his little sister for a moment.  On most days such a supposition would have elicited a laugh from her and encouraged her to one-up his outrageous claim with something more revolting like: ‘yeah, she’s probably making him lick her asshole while she takes his cock down her throat.’

It was something they did.  Sort of a gross-out game of chicken, and they’d play until one of them couldn’t take it anymore.  Grey usually won, by virtue of having more world experience and having a wider vocabulary of filth to draw upon, but Viola could hold her own.  The trick was to distance yourself from the fact that they were your parents, or real people at all, and just try not to visualize it too clearly.  As soon as you thought of the actual people involved it was all over.  They did it with all sorts of people, not just their parents.  The best was perverted imaginings about Granny Calder and her Bull Mastiff, Rufus.

“Why not?” He challenged, carefully pouring about two fingers into his tumbler.  “They fuck like horny teenagers all the time.”  He reasoned.  “No offense.”  He added with a smirk.

Viola opened her mouth for what Grey expected was a biting retort but then she seemed to swallow it whole.  “What did she want with you?”  She asked, veering away from the game completely.

He replaced the stopper on the decanter and shrugged, a little disappointed that his baby sister wasn’t in the mood to be a good sport.  He was feeling the need to be particularly outrageous after that awkwardly emotional tete-a-tete in the study.  “She wanted to give me an engagement ring for Maggie.”  He answered honestly.  He didn’t trust any of his other sisters farther than he could shove them, but he’d always liked Viola, and she’d always proven to be a true blue confidant.

“No shit.”

“Yup.”  He said and breathed in the smoky, stinging scent of the scotch.

“Where’d she get it?”

He sipped.  “Fucking Vaughan Grey.”  He answered with all the loathing he felt.  He turned toward the room at large and sat on the sideboard, crossing his long legs out in front of him.

Viola’s face changed and she looked again at the door. “Poor Dad.”  She said heavily.

Grey nodded absently and ran his tongue over his teeth and gums, savoring the feeling of the scotch on the inside of his mouth.  “She’s kept it for me all these years.”  He said with a mirthless laugh.  “She can’t even hide a fucking Christmas present.”

“You didn’t take it, right?” Viola kept her eyes on the door.

“Nah.”  He answered.  “Fucking thing was grotesque anyway.  Liz Taylor huge.”

Viola glanced at him, trying to decide if he was joking.  When she read that he was not, her eyebrows rose quite high.  “I’m surprised she doesn’t wear it, then.”

Grey bristled.  He liked Viola.  Alot.  But in the last couple years they seemed to clash often over their differing opinions regarding their mother.  He tried not to get too prickly about it.  He knew he was more protective than other sons were where their mothers are concerned, and he knew Viola was a teenage girl and thus biologically designed to hate her mother.  So, as often as possible he tried to avoid an out-and-out conflict.  She was the only sister he liked enough to bother having conversations with and he’d rather not jeopardize the only thing that made attending family functions partway bearable.

“I bet she wears it when she jerks him off—he seems like a masochist doesn’t he?”

Viola again ignored the bait.  “Can I have some?”  She asked, eying his scotch.

Grey glanced at the still-closed study door, and then to the next most likely to disapprove, but Avalon was busy searching through Jonah’s old record collection, with the attentive aid of her goody-two-shoes fiancée.  Maggie was engrossed in some story the twins were regaling her with, so Grey quirked his lips in a mischievous smile and handed the drink to his little sister.

“Be careful.”  He cautioned as she lifted it to her lips.

Her violet eyes widened and her eyebrow crinkled in a question.

“Drinking scotch always makes a person want to eat pussy.”

The light in her eyes danced with amusement and she took a sip despite her wide smile.

He watched her eyes water as she swallowed, and her face scrunch up and twist in her uncontrollable reaction to the stuff.  He couldn’t help chuckling as he prized the tumbler from her fingers.

“Holy fucking shit.”  She gasped, smacking her lips and blinking rapidly.

“Yeah.” Grey responded, taking a sip and savoring the tingle and the smoke of it.

“How the fuck does anyone drink that?!”  She marveled, opening her mouth as if she expected to breathe fire like some storybook dragon.  “I can’t believe Dad drinks that.”  She said, clearly in awe.

Grey shrugged.  “Maybe he enjoys feeling like eating pussy.”

Viola blushed and Grey raised his eyebrows in genuine surprise.  Heaven knew he’d said a lot worse of their father when playing gross-out chicken, (one of his favorites involved a rusty trombone, a banana and a Cincinnati Bowtie) and Viola rarely batted an eyelash, giving almost as good as she got.  Why the girlish blush now, about something so mundane as oral?

“Can you sneak me a rum drink?”  She rushed, and he entertained the idea, but the study door opened and their parents returned to the little party, ruining Viola’s chance at spicing up her evening. 

“Sorry kid.”  He said with an easy shrug.  “Next time.”  Grey took a long swallow of Scotch, felt his nose and lips twitch in response, and then commanded his legs to go join the rest of the family.  He stood and stretched. Jesus fucking Christ, how the fuck had this all happened?

“Hey, Grey.”  Viola whispered, and he turned.  “This mean you’re going to bring your wife back to the cottage and eat her out?”

It was Grey’s turn to blush.  About something so mundane as oral.

“Touché.”  He responded, pushing his shoulders back and quickly looking away.  She’d got him. 

Well-fucking-played.

The Loophole

“You let her dictate the terms?” Vaughan Grey held a bourbon in one hand and Grey’s prenuptial agreement in his other.  He was seated in a dark leather armchair wearing only a silk robe open to his navel.  A cigar smoldered in an ashtray at his elbow.

“I didn’t have much of a choice.”  Grey didn’t quite manage to keep the petulant note out of his reply and felt a slight blush when the man looked at him under raised eyebrows.  This man made him feel like a moronic child.

“She have something good on you?”  He held his gaze steady and Grey felt his balls recede just a bit.  He despised himself for being intimidated by this man.

He nodded.  He didn’t want to whine.

Vaughan looked back to the papers and sipped his drink while his eyes scanned the document.  Grey half-wished he hadn’t come.  He took a fortifying sip of the bourbon he’d been offered and tried his best to keep his face from twisting in response.  It was brutal bourbon.  His father over there drank the stuff like it was water.

Vaughan put his tumbler down next to the ashtray and sat forward in his seat, unconcerned that his robe fell open even further.  Grey looked determinedly away.  He didn’t want to see what the man had behind the robe.  He heard the rapid shuffling of papers.

“Well she’s got you pretty good my boy—“  Vaughan said with a half-laugh.  Grey’s shoulders tensed at the familiarity.  “Practically air tight.” He reached for the cigar.  “Who drew up the papers?”

Grey swallowed.  “My lawyer.”  He felt like an idiot.

“You let your own lawyer put your nuts in this vise?”  Vaughan paused, the cigar not yet to his lips.  He looked perplexed and almost disgusted.  “What’s she have on you?”

“Look, is there any way out of it?”  Grey didn’t want to talk about how badly he’d fucked himself over.  He’d been in a panic and he was ashamed of how hastily he’d acted, how completely he’d danced to that little bitch’s tune.  He certainly didn’t want Vaughan Grey to know what an absolute cunt he’d been.

“There’s always a way out.”  Said Vaughan philosophically, and leaned back, puffing the cigar and retrieving his bourbon.  The pre-nup lay over his exposed thigh.

Grey waited.  He was better at holding his tongue than people would expect.  He waited for Vaughan to continue.

“Like I said, she’s got you pretty good.” He spoke in a business like tone that belied the hedonistic relaxation of his body.  “Seven years of marriage, you’re paying for her college education, you’re paying for the kid until he’s eighteen—no matter what—“ he added with a chuckle “then you’re also paying for him to go to college and you’re establishing a trust fund on top of it all.”  He took a long, thoughtful puff.  “And if you violate the terms she gets fifty percent of everything you’ve got, plus all the child support bullshit.”

Grey understood that much.  It also had some provisions about extra marital activities that he was none too pleased about.

“This girl a lawyer?”  Grey hated the grin the man was giving him.

“No.” he answered tersely.

“Then this was all your lawyer’s doing?”

Grey shrugged.  Maybe he’d fire that thorough mother-fucker.  But the man had only done what he’d asked of him.  He could kick himself.

“Did she have a lawyer look it over?”

“A cousin.  I think he was a lawyer.” 

Vaughan nodded slowly and exhaled liquid-looking smoke.  Grey was going to fucking reek when he left here.  He abhorred cigars.

“Who else knows about this?” Grey didn’t know why but the man’s tone made him shift in his seat; he had that uncomfortable feeling again that made his balls recede further.

“The lawyer, The girl, her cousin, me and now you.”  Grey didn’t let the apprehension he was feeling translate into his voice.  He was all business.

“Your… father?”  The man’s lips twisted into something like a smile and grey fought the instinct to wince.

“No.”  He kept his answer simple.  Jonah had been unwilling to help.  Jonah was the reason Grey was seated in Vaughan Grey’s cigar-smoke drenched study.

“Do you call him your father?”  The man asked, veering off course suddenly.

Grey took a moment.  “Yes.”

“And what am I?”  The tone was curious, interested, nothing more.

“Excuse me?”  Grey wasn’t in the mood to play games, but the man held his fate in his yellowed old hands.

“How do you think of me, then?  What’s my title?”

‘Asshole who fucked my mom’ was what Grey wanted to say.  But, then, that’s often how he thought of Jonah too.  Did Vaughan Grey want to hear Grey call him ‘father’?

“My father.”  He answered dispassionately.

The old fuck smiled.  He took a sip of bourbon.  He puffed on his cigar. 

“Does he know your mom used to take you to see me when you were a kid?”

What the fuck was this man’s deal?  “No.”  Grey was impatient but he kept his temper even.  Of course he didn’t fucking know.  It was part of the custody agreement that Grey be kept away from the man.  Grey still remembered how it made him feel when his mother had begged him, tears in her big green eyes, not to ever tell Dad about his visits with Mr. Grey.  Or about her long hours alone with Mr. Grey during some of those visits.

“So he’s, what, your ‘Dad’ and I’m…?”  He trailed off, waiting for Grey to answer.

What you’ve always been, you mother fucker.  “Mr. Grey, is there any way out of the contract?”  He stared at the man baldly.  He wanted to give the impression that he wasn’t rattled.

Vaughan laughed, a hearty, full throated laugh, and put the cigar down.

“Alright.” He abandoned his inquest and returned his attention to the document.  “As far as I can tell there’s one big, glaring loophole.”

Grey leaned forward in his own seat, but made an effort to look calmer than he felt.  “What is it?”

“Well this whole thing hinges on the child.”

A moment ticked by.  Vaughan didn’t continue and Grey furrowed his brow.  Of course it hinged on the fucking child, that was the whole reason he was in this fucking mess.  Having learned at a young age not to speak unless he was sure he knew what was going on (a lesson he would have done well to remember when dealing with Maggie), he held his tongue and waited for Vaughan to elaborate.

“It seems to me that if there is no child the contract is forfeit.”  He finally finished, a note of irritation in his voice.

Grey was non-plussed.  “Right, but there is a child and she obviously isn’t interested in an abortion or I wouldn’t be wearing this ring.”  The ring that felt like prison bars.

“There isn’t a child.” Vaughan countered coolly.

“Uhh-“  Grey began to contradict but stopped.

Vaughan lifted his eyebrows and nodded once. “There isn’t a child yet.”

Grey’s mouth felt sticky.  He looked at the dark amber bourbon but decided not to have another sip.  Even the scent of it was offensive.

“What am I supposed to do, hope she has a miscarriage so that I can be rid of her?”

Vaughan Grey looked disappointed and Grey felt a prickling on the back of his neck and arms.

“Maybe you could wait around hoping—if you were a fucking sap.” 

Grey clenched his jaw.  “I already told you, she won’t get an abort—“

“Use your fucking brain.”  Vaughan interrupted coldly.

Grey snapped his mouth shut, frustrated and embarrassed.  He loathed this man.  He hated being made to feel like a stupid child and Vaughan Grey always managed to do just that.

Recklessly he downed the rest of the wretched bourbon and slammed the glass down on the coffee table.  Vaughan Grey was unimpressed by the gesture.

Grey stood to pace and wished he hadn’t stood so quickly immediately after downing the bourbon.  He shouldn’t have come here.  But what other choice did he have?

“She could lose the baby.”  Grey said quietly, trying to find his way to whatever cryptic logic his Father was using. 

“These things happen.”  Vaughan responded encouragingly.

“But there’s no guarantee—“  Grey put his fingers to the bridge of his nose and tried to focus. “No way of controlling that.”

“There is always a way.”  Vaughan spoke sternly now, halting Grey’s determined pacing.  Grey looked at the man for a long, tense moment until he was pretty sure he understood.  The thick cloud of cigar smoke was overwhelming and Grey wanted some air.  He was having trouble drawing breath.  He felt queasy.

“What am I supposed to do? Push her down the stairs?”  Grey sneered at the man.

“There are other ways.” He answered evenly.  “Less obvious methods.”

Grey couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

“Don’t look so appalled, young man.” Said his father with an answering sneer.  “If you had wanted the wholesome advice you’d be in Delaney’s study and not mine.”

He was right.  Grey had come here to get out of a marriage contract.  He’d known that to do so would mean something underhanded, something not-exactly-legal, something immoral even.  And that’s exactly why he was here with Vaughan and not with Jonah.

Grey walked slowly over to the armchair where he’d been sitting and braced himself on the tall back of it.  “And if she—“ he swallowed “If she loses the baby—“ what the fuck was he saying? “Then I’m free?  It’s over?”

Now Vaughan Grey relaxed a little and smiled.  “If there’s no baby there’s no obligation.”  He answered, a victorious tinge to his words.

“How?”

Vaughan narrowed his dark eyes.  “There are things you could put in her food.”  He answered smoothly.

“Untraceable?”  Grey almost couldn’t believe what he was saying.

“Mostly.  But no one will be looking for it.”  He folded the marriage contract neatly in his lap.  “Young women miscarry all the time for all kinds of reasons.”  He looked Grey in the eye.  “It happens.”

Grey nodded.  He supposed it did happen every day.  It could be so easy.  It would be over and he’d be free.

“I don’t know if I could do that.”  He said, allowing all the disappointment he felt bleed into his voice.  He wanted to be able to do it. 

Vaughan Grey shook his head.  “Sackless like the boy-scout who raised you.”

Grey stiffened. His nostrils flared.

“This is the only way out, Son.”  Vaughan said plainly.  “Either take fate by the balls or let it fuck you up the ass.  The choice is yours.”  He tossed the documents onto the coffee table and stood effortlessly, not bothering to close up his mostly open robe.  “I’ll be here when you’ve made up your mind to be a man.”  And he strode out of the room, taking his cigar and his bourbon and his overwhelming presence with him.

Nature Versus Nurture; In Her Sights

Threnody Aschere had slept with just about everyone she’d set her mind to sleeping with.  She was a woman who’d grown up accustomed to getting whatever she wanted and she learned quickly how to make sex one of those things she was very adept at procuring.  There had been precious few who’d gotten away from her, and some of those missed opportunities—she preferred not to think of them as failures—still rankled a bit.

The handsome Delaney brothers, for instance.  She’d tried for years, off and on, to get them into her bed and had come up infuriatingly short.  The older two were unswervingly good boys and rejected her advances again and again with a certainty and steadfastness that shook her to her core.  She knew for a fact that the dark haired one might have gone for it once or twice, before he’d married, but out of some loyalty to his brother and pretty sister-in-law he’d politely refused.

And the younger one, the one in his thirties?  She was almost certain he was gay, so she left him for her brother to devour.  Maybe she’d do a threesome with them sometime.  But a threesome would be so much less satisfying a conquest.

But there was one Delaney man remaining, one she hadn’t yet approached, but one she’d had in mind since he turned about seventeen years old.  Vaughan’s bastard.  The one his screaming princess had just about miscarried on the sundeck all those years ago. 

When first she noticed him, in the park playing some athletic game with a pack of young things, she’d noted how trim and fit and healthy he was.  She loved that about young men, how they glowed with youth and virility and there was something fresh and vital about them.  And they were always so keen to please and ready for play, just like eager puppies.

She remembered looking him over and finding him attractive before realizing that he looked incredibly familiar.  She watched him for quite a while that day in the park, waiting to meet her brother, and tried to place him.  She hadn’t already fucked him, she was almost certain she’d remember.  Looking at his pack she recognized a few young men she’d already had, and they continually looked over to her with a range of smiles or scowls or sheepish expressions.

Then the boy took notice of the distraction to his teammates and pulled one of them aside for a few words.

She watched the boy listen to his friend’s explanation and met his eyes when he looked up and stared at her.  She lifted her designer sunglasses to her forehead and gave the slightest of smiles.  He didn’t react exactly as she’d expected.  He stood taller, straightened his shoulders, looked her over from head to toe, met her eyes once more, and with a tilt of his head went back to the game.

Threnody Aschere hadn’t blushed in years, maybe ever, but she blushed then.  Who the fuck did he think he was?  And then she heard him laugh, the sound floating over the open common, and recognition dawned.  She sat forward and tried to get a better look. 

Now that she’d heard the laugh, that careless, arrogant, self-satisfied laugh she saw the resemblance at once.  This boy was Vaughan Grey’s. 

She’d left the park then, without bothering to wait for her brother.  Seeing that boy, that young man had suddenly made her feel extremely old.  And filthy.  And uncomfortable.

She went out and fucked a silver fox that night to make herself feel younger, but she only felt more hollow and haggard in the morning.  Her confidence was suddenly in tatters.

Then she’d gone to Vaughan.  They still fucked from time to time, and he often recommended young ladies to her that he thought might be to her taste.  She supposed she might even call the son of a bitch a friend, but wasn’t quite sure if either one was capable of friendship.

“This is a pleasant surprise.”  He’d said, smiling around a freshly lit cigar.

“Are you alone?”

He raised his eyebrows.  “What answer would you prefer?”

She smiled indulgently, though she wasn’t in the mood for games.

“Just you tonight.”

He nodded, a mock-gentleman’s nod and stepped aside so that she could enter.

“Just give me a minute.”  He said, flicking ash into a standing ash tray.  He disappeared up stairs and she gravitated to the bar.  She heard voices above and she set about making herself a strong drink.  Just as she was plopping an olive into her vodka martini two sopping wet asian girls in various states of undress came stomping down the final few stairs and through the foyer toward the front door.

“It’s been a pleasure ladies, maybe we’ll do this again sometime?”  Vaughan purred as he hustled them toward the door.  They were furious and hit him with every name in the book but he only smiled a more debonair smile and bid them goodnight, closing the door in their fuming faces.

He turned to her and dropped his smile, his expression smoldering.

“Want a drink?”  She asked, her voice low and electric.

He nodded and she reached for the bourbon, but stopped when he made a small ‘uh-uhn’ sound and shook his head.  “That’s not what I want.”  He said as he approached her.

She narrowed her silver-gray eyes and met his dark, hungry gaze with one of her own.  He grabbed her wrist where it was frozen in mid reach and she felt a thrill sizzle down her arm and right to her core.  He was one of the few lovers she had that was really effective at being rough.  Most men were practically laughable when they played at forcefulness, because that’s all it was: an act, a little game they liked to play to feel more manly. 

But Vaughan didn’t play.  And he was never laughable.  He was one man that made her feel truly feminine, honestly vulnerable, and she needed that from time to time.

She pulled against his grip and his lips curled into a wicked smile as his fingers tightened enough to pull a gasp from her lips.

His other hand went swiftly to her throat and her lips parted to receive his punishing kiss.  He tasted of strong liquor and cigars and strawberry lipgloss and pussy and she felt herself getting wet.  She bit his lip hard and he chuckled.  He squeezed her slim throat tighter and she couldn’t draw breath.

“You offered me a drink honey,” he said in a menacing growl against her ear.  She tasted a slight hint of iron on her tongue and smiled.  She’d bitten him hard enough to draw blood.  He was going to fuck her senseless. “And I’m going to have that drink.”

Her vision was beginning to darken and she wondered if he planned of using her while she was unconscious.  It was something they’d done before, but tonight she wanted to be awake, to feel everything, experience every moment.

He bit hard on her earlobe and she pressed her body into his, desperate and eager and struggling to find breath.  Effortlessly he lifted her by the throat and threw her onto the top of the bar.  Only then did he release her neck.  She gasped and choked and sucked for air.  While she struggled to get her wind he deftly ripped open her shirt, sending buttons flying everywhere, and she smiled, even through desperate draws for air, because what woman doesn’t like that old cliché? 

Christ, if felt like he’d crushed her windpipe.

He shoved her skirt up to her waist and tore her panties off as though they were made of crepe paper.  She bit her lip.  Vaughan Grey was good at cunnelingus.   In her experience most men who fancied themselves ladies’ men or philanderers or Casanovas weren’t actually great lovers.  Vaughan Grey was phenomenal.  And most men dabbled with oral, gave it their best and came up wanting.  Other than from her brother or another woman, Vaughan gave the best head she’d ever received.  He told her once that he loved to taste pussy, to compare and contrast, and he certainly liked to make his partners desperate and needy and willing to do anything for him.

He plunged four fingers inside of her savagely, right up to where his knuckles met his palm, and with his thumb over her freshly waxed mound he gripped her pubic bone from without and from within and pulled her toward the edge of the bar.  She couldn’t help moaning.  He didn’t release her right away, instead he kept his possessive grip between her legs and leaned over her.  He nipped her shoulder, and squeezed his hand tighter around her sex.  She responded by gripping back with every muscle available to her and she watched him grin before devouring one of her taut nipples.  He sucked it and licked it and bit it until she was ready to scream and then abruptly he pulled his hand out of her and she felt empty, desolate.

But then his face was down there and she curled her toes inside her exquisite strappy stilettos and ran her tongue over her top lip.  The thing that she liked about Vaughan’s style was that it really felt like he was doing exactly what he wanted to her.  He wasn’t going down on her for her pleasure but for his.  He wanted to eat pussy and she was just a vessel, an offering to his hunger.  It made her feel used and disposable and hotter than she could ever get with any man or woman who went down there to dutifully bring her to climax.

Instead, with Vaughan, she came whenever he pleased, whenever he decided he wanted to feel her shudder and rock under his lips and fingers, and not a minute before.  He was the only man she’d met who could make oral pleasure feel less like worship and more like rape, and she couldn’t get enough of it.

He tortured her, drew pleading words from her lips, made her pull at her own hair in desperation and still he took his sweet time, enjoying his power over her, making greedy, guttural noises against her slick flesh.  Had he been almost any other man she’d have already flipped him over and ridden his face until she came, but he held her firmly in submission below him and she knew she was his to do with as he pleased for now.  He was in that kind of mood tonight, and she was in the mood to take it.

She had the feeling that he was relieved to let himself go, be completely selfish and take what he wanted.  As much as two little asian girls might seem like a dream come true, Threnody knew from experience that he’d have been working very hard to please them, harder possibly than they worked to please him—he had a reputation to uphold afterall—but  now he was finally getting to tear into someone he knew he could fuck like a whore with no negative consequences.

Because she wouldn’t cry or complain or run screaming, she wouldn’t report him to any authorities, she would meet him thrust for thrust and take whatever he had to give her. 

Her nerves were fraught with all his ministrations and she began to lose feeling in her legs.  Suddenly she was all pussy, all she was was whatever he chose to lick or kiss or suck.  Her whole being, her whole existence was centered in her cunt and she needed him to get her off or she felt certain she’d cease to be. 

She clawed at her own throat, roughly massaged her own tits, writhed as much as his firm grip would allow and still he tortured her.  She felt like sobbing.  She begged him over and over, begged him to give her release and he only laughed, hot breath searing across her sensitive flesh, the vibrations sending her nerves skittering wildly.

She knew he enjoyed making a woman of her poise and prowess beg and whine and need so much.  He enjoyed it when she did the same to him.  No woman could make him as desperate and wild as she could when he was in a mood to allow her dominance, and she had a feeling he never let anyone else lead him around by his cock the way he allowed her to do.

And suddenly he was done between her legs and she cried out at the injustice of it but he was pulling her to a sitting position and his mouth was on hers.  His face and lips were still glistening with her wetness and she greedily sucked his tongue, tasting herself there.  He slid her down onto his cock and she leaned her head back, savoring the length of him within her.  The rounded edge of the bar pressed uncomfortably into her back with every forceful thrust and she reveled in it. 

When his pace slowed slightly she dragged her head back up to face him.  One large, wide hand was gripping her bare ass, holding her up on his cock, now he slid the other down between them and took hold of the base of his shaft. 

She dug her fingernails into the fabric of his robe at his shoulders and lifted herself as much as she could to give him better access.  And then he slammed mercilessly into her ass and she let herself scream, half pain, half pleasure.  He wrapped his fingers around her hip bones and ground himself deeper again and again until she was close to weeping. She wrapped her long legs tightly around him and squeezed as he captured one of her nipples between her teeth and sucked insistently.  Slowly he began a steady rhythm, the tight, wet curls of his pelvis brushing up against the raw, sensitive flesh of her clit and she was coming.  He made her come once, then again, and then a third time in rapid succession before he ripped himself out of her ass and let her slide down his body until she was kneeling at his feet.

“Lick it.”  He said, his voice rough and thick.

She smiled up at him, met his eyes and then shook her head almost imperceptibly.  He blinked. Then a small smile flashed across his face just a moment before he back-handed her across her cheekbone.

White lightening flashed across her vision and hot, electric pain exploded in her face.  She blinked until she could see again and then she looked back up at his face, a smile pulling at the corners of her mouth.

“I told you to lick it clean.”  He said huskily, and he snaked the fingers of one hand possessively through the silky strands of her hair.

“No.”  She said tauntingly and he smiled again.  She closed her eyes just as the second blow struck her other cheek, this one harder than the first.  Her clit throbbed and her thighs were wet and her face stung.  He’d held her head in place for the second blow, forcing her to absorb the full impact without recourse and she finally opened her lips obediently.

She met his dark eyes as he pulled her skull toward his cock and she watched his face as her tongue slid up him from base to tip.  He made her lick it again and again, encouraging her, denigrating her, praising her skill, before finally gripping around the back of her head and shoving her mouth down over his shaft.

She gripped his ass tight and allowed him to fuck her mouth and throat as vigorously as he would a cunt, and he rewarded her by finishing deep in her throat, choking her, and then pulling out enough to let her taste him on her tongue and on her lips. 

He leaned down, crushing her delicate jaw in his fingers so that she was unable to close her lips, and he greedily licked his salty come off her bottom lip and then bit down hard enough to draw blood.  It was his answering action for her earlier misdemeanor.

Then he released his vise-like grip with a bit of a shove and moved around to the back of the bar.

She collapsed just a little, and sat with her legs folded indecorously beneath her, her face burning and her cheekbones throbbing with a pulsing ache, her lip bleeding and her clit pulsing erratically, her asshole stinging and sore.

She listened to him pouring bourbon and she leaned her head back against the underside of the bar with a shaky sigh.

She closed her eyes for a moment and only opened them at the sound of his “Here.”

She opened her eyes to see a topped-off vodka martini in front of her face.

She took it with shaking hands and watched his bare legs cross in front of her and she heard him sigh as he sank into the leather couch.

“Not bad for round one.”  She said, forcing herself to purr, forcing herself to hide the tremulousness she still felt.

He laughed deeply and sipped his bourbon.

“Not bad at all.”  He agreed and patted the couch next to him. 

She took a long moment, trying to determine whether or not her quivering knees would be able to support her if she stood right then, and then finally she managed to pull herself to standing with all the grace and composure she was renowned for.  She slipped off her ruined blouse casually, placing her vodka drink on the bar top for a moment.  Then she slid off her crumpled skirt, reclaimed her martini and sauntered over to the couch, garbed only in those stilettos, and folded her legs underneath her as she settled in next to him.  She leaned into him gently and sipped her drink thoughtfully.

“So Kitten, what brings you here this evening?”  He asked, leaning his head back and closing his eyes.  He was spent and thoroughly at ease.

She decided to go with honesty.  “I saw your son.”

His brows contracted but he kept his eyes closed.  “Velvet’s boy?”  He asked, his words thick, he was drowsy.

“He’s a man now.”  She said, staring into her drink, examining the air bubbles that clung to the olive at the bottom.

He shifted slightly, sitting up and shaking his head to clear the encroaching fog of sleep.  “Bullshit.”  He said with a smile.

She nodded.  “No, he is, he’s got to be, what?  Seventeen, eighteen?”

Vaughan shrugged.

“He looks like you.” She said, puzzling at the peculiar tone in her voice.

Vaughan put his fingers under her chin and gently angled and lifted her face and waited until she met his eyes.

“And you want to fuck him?”  He looked amused.

“I’m not sure.”  She confessed, suddenly feeling very foolish.

He snorted once and brought his bourbon to his lips for a long sip, never taking his eyes from hers.  She willed herself not to look away, not to break.

“What, do you want my permission or something?”  He finally asked, sounding bemused and maybe a little irritated.

“Of course not.”  She said dismissively pulling her chin out of his fingers and taking a mouthful of her own drink. She enjoyed the cleansing burn all the way down her esophagus, taking a moment to concentrate on the liquid fire as it curled into her belly.

Neither spoke for several moments.

“You ever fuck Delaney?”  He asked, meaning Velvet’s husband, and she immediately detected a tension beneath the forced-casual query.

Her lips quirked but she repressed the smile.

“What business is it of yours?”  She asked breathily.

He downed the rest of his bourbon and slammed the tumbler down on the table next to him.  When he spoke his voice was cool and level, but his muscles were tense, his body suddenly very aggressive.  “Did you ever suck that boy-scout’s cock?”

A slow smile spread across her face but she held her tongue.

He’d rather she fuck his own son than Jonah Delaney.  She laughed deep in her throat.  “Maybe.”  She lied.

His eye twitched and his lips pressed together.  He moved over her, laying her down across the leather couch and putting his weight on top of her.  Without looking he traced his hand down her arm and removed the glass from her hand, setting it down on the floor next to the couch.

“I’m only going to ask you once more.”  He threatened, his voice low and deadly.  “Did you let that sackless fucker put his hands on you?”

She bit her lower lip but couldn’t suppress her wicked grin.  She’d been with as many if not more partners that he’d been with and jealousy had never been a factor in their unique relationship.  She found she was enjoying his ire very much.

“What if I did?”  She challenged him, her voice liquid and cloying.

Something wild flashed over his eyes and then it was gone.  He smiled easily and kissed her perfectly mildly.  Her eyebrows drew together.  He stood and retrieved his empty tumbler and headed back to the bar.

He’d guessed she was just fucking with him.

“Never got your claws in him, am I right?”  Vaughan asked, pouring another healthy dose of bourbon into his glass.  “I know his type.”

She sat up.  “I liked it better when you thought I had.”

He laughed appreciatively.  “I’ll still punish you accordingly if you’d like.”  He crossed to his humidor and drew out a sleek cigar.

She sighed.  “Those Delaneys are too fucking pure.”  She said peevishly.  She watched him clip the end as she’d done a hundred times before.  He struck a match and Threnody enjoyed the familiar smell of the ignited chemicals.

“So what about the boy?”  Vaughan asked, between puffs, drawing the flame into the cigar patiently.

“He looked interested, and then he found out who I was and then . . . nothing.”  She’d never admit this to anyone else, except, of course, her brother.

“hmmmm.”  Vaughan responded pensively, shaking the flame from the match and inhaling.  He savored the smoke for a long moment before letting it ooze out in a slow exhale.

“Want one?”  He asked.  She shook her head.  She wasn’t in the mood today.

He sauntered over, picked up her glass from where he’d placed it on the floor and kissed her full on the lips so she could enjoy the cigar vicariously through him.

“So the boy knows who you are.”  He stated thoughtfully as he headed to the bar.

“Most people know who I am.” She replied, stating fact.

He nodded and reached for the vodka.  “Of course, but when most young men know who you are they get more interested, not less so.” 

She sighed.  “I know.  It was very, well, very strange.”  She admitted.

He replaced the vodka and reached for the vermouth.

“Can I have a stinger?”  She asked, wanting the coolness.

He looked at the martini glass and pulled his cigar out of his mouth and set it in a glass ashtray on the bar. “Come eat your olive.” And he withdrew a fresh glass before rinsing the shaker.

Running her fingers through her long, tousled hair she stretched as she stood and crossed to the bar. She sat on a barstool and smiled a little at the shock of cold metal against her pussy.  She watched him plop ice into the shaker and reach for the Crème de menthe and she swirled her olive around in the vodka he’d poured before quickly shooting the liquor and plopping the olive into her mouth.

“Waste not want not.”  He said wryly and added a good measure of vodka to the shaker.  She waited patiently as he shook it and poured it and slid it across the smooth bar top to her.

“Thank you.”  She murmured and instantly felt refreshed just catching the scent of the mint.

“My pleasure.” He took a sip of his own drink and then spoke again.  “He knows who you are but more than that, it seems he knows what you’ve done.”

She looked at him over the rim of her glass, sipped and then put the glass down.  “Maybe he doesn’t like women who sleep around.”  She said dully.  Those kinds of men were exceptionally tiresome.

Vaughan laughed.  “You’re a fucking legend.  No red-blooded boy would hesitate to mount you.”  He assured her.

“Well this one did.”  She responded quickly.

“I know.” He agreed, picking up his cigar from the heavy amber colored glass ashtray.  “So it’s likely he’s been warned to stay away from you.”

She smiled lasciviously and cocked her head to the side.  “All little boys are warned to stay away from me—it usually only serves to fuel their desire.  For the forbidden.”

He ran the back of his fingers under his chin and along his jaw and she heard the scratchy sound of his five-o-clock shadow rubbing against his knuckles.  “True.”  He was quiet for a moment.  “Which can only mean one thing.”  He inhaled through the cigar, flared his nostrils and exhaled slowly.

“Well?”  She asked at length when he’d fallen silent.

“It means they told him the goddamned truth.”  He said with half a smile.

Threnody raised an eyebrow.  “The truth about you and me and that ridiculous drama your little bride made up on the sundeck?”

He met her eyes.  “They must have.”

She leaned back in a yawn, arching her spine.  She caught him admiring her pert breasts and she smirked.  “I don’t know about that.”  She told him.

“Well kitten, in my experience there’s only a handful of reasons a hot-blooded young man would turn down the prospect of having you.”

She bristled a little, not caring to think of anyone ‘turning her down’.  But she stayed silent, waiting for his explanation.

“I don’t see the boy heeding his father’s advice, not for anything—his ‘dad’ I mean of course.”  He grinned a feral grin and continued.  “In fact, knowing what I do I’d say the boy would be far more likely to fuck you if Delaney had forbidden it.”

She raised her eyebrows and nodded for him to continue.

“And I have it on pretty good authority that the boy isn’t queer—He’s already knocked up a girl a couple towns over and I think Delaney paid for the abortion.”

Threnody was stunned.  “That goody-two-shoes paid for an abortion?”

Vaughan nodded smugly.  “And in any case, word is he fucks a new girl every week, sometimes more than one in a week and sometimes more than one at a time.”  Threnody felt a swirling fire in her belly.

“So he’s got a healthy appetite.”

“Like his old man.”  Vaughan laughed.  He took his bourbon and his cigar and moved to stand in front of the double French doors that led to the back patio.  Threnody swiveled in her seat to watch him, leaning back against the bar, her elbows up and her stinger in one hand.

“Then, what?”  He seemed to know a fair amount about a boy he hadn’t raised and hadn’t given a damn about.

“Well I’ve heard he likes virgins—but he’s not exclusively a fetishist, he’s fucked plenty of experienced women.” 

So it was just her.  Threnody tipped the rest of the contents of her glass into her mouth and swallowed grimly.  She was old and used-up and couldn’t get a sex-addicted teenage boy to fuck her.

“So I figure it has to do with his mamma.”

She placed the glass carefully on the bar top.  “Excuse me?”

Vaughan turned to her with a smile.  “The boy has a soft spot for his mother, and he won’t touch you because of what you did to her.”  She could only stare.  “You were the other woman,” Vaughan pressed on, impressed with his own Holmesian conclusions.  “You broke up his mom and real daddy and in a very public arena too.”

She rolled her eyes.  “What the fuck would he care?  He wasn’t even born yet.”

Vaughan smiled.  “You’re the Wicked Witch kitten.  A legend of a monster and he’s decided to steer clear of you. Out of, principle.” He laughed softly.

She tisked.  “I want to fuck him.”  She said decisively.  “I want to fuck him till he can’t get it up for any other piece of ass that struts his way.”  She set her jaw and glared into the distance.

Vaughan chuckled.  “Then you will kitten.”  He said and moved back toward where she sat at the bar.  “Give him a few years.”  She swallowed.  She already felt too old.  “Give him some time out from under that roof.  Give him some time to fuck strings of drunken barely-legals and get out from under the thumb of his sainted step-father and he’ll be ready to look your way.”

She looked into his dark eyes.  Could she wait that long?  Did she have the patience to hold off until the time was right?  She wasn’t sure.  He leaned down and kissed her tenderly. 

“I want to see if he’s like you.”  She said against his lips and he pulled away enough to study her face.  “Or if he’s like him.”

Vaughan’s mouth twitched and he narrowed his eyes.  He understood she was ready to be punished again.  He pulled his cigar to his lips, took a long, slow puff and then blew the smoke into her face.  Her eyes burned and teared-up but she fought he urge to turn her head or blink too much.

“Or maybe if he’s better than either of you.”  She said in a low, dangerous voice.  His eyes darkened and a deadly smile twisted his features and she knew she’d be leaving the house with a fresh burn mark on her body.  And she laughed.