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Heather didn’t understand why the imagery was so important to him but she usually played along after some prodding. She could picture Billy in his black truck driving down Bloomer Street with an erection growing by the mile and the thought made her excited.
When he got to her house he would do the same thing with their lovemaking. He’d bring her into the kitchen and screw her on the counter.
“Remember this when you’re cooking tonight,” he’d tell her.
He would bring her into the bathroom and bend her over in front of the mirror so they could watch themselves.
The image would be burned into her memory and every time she brushed her teeth or plucked her eyebrows, her internal video camera replayed the scene back for her.
“I’m on Gunn,” he said in a half whisper.
“Are you wearing your red bandana?” she asked.
He knew she loved it when he wore the red head rag and he did anything she wanted, as long as it remained a part of the secret life they shared.
“Of course,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.
“All right, I’m hanging up,” she said. “I have to get ready.”
“What for?” he asked.
Heather reminded herself that men didn’t know what went on behind the scenes. He didn’t know she would be lighting candles and preparing a music list. He had no 31
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idea she’d be checking to make sure she was perfectly shaved or that her skin smelled sweet enough.
He wouldn’t see her running from one room to the next, ensuring each room was clean in case they decided to venture into it. And he wouldn’t see the shame and the guilt she struggled with after images of crying brown eyes forced their way into her awareness.
Billy had always promised that when she was ready, he would let her go but he had proven himself to be a liar.
She had tried repeatedly to end the relationship but he called persistently and somehow knew all the right words to weaken her resolve.
There were many unspoken agreements between them. Heather often told herself she loved the secret and the excitement but not the man. She’d never admit it but she fi gured deep down she had to have some kind of love for him. Otherwise, she couldn’t have compromised her values and morals for so long.
She had no envy for his wife or for the life the woman led but decided there might be some residual ache leftover from the fact that Billy had chosen another woman to marry years before. Besides, it was the wife who had gotten the raw end of the deal. It was the wife who was being cheated and lied to. Heather told herself she felt no envy for the deceived spouse who lived in ignorance. So what if she got to hold him every night and wake up to him each morning. Heather told herself she didn’t care about those things.
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The invisible rules erected by the taboo couple were never discussed openly. They both knew which boundaries they could cross and which ones they couldn’t.
Lately, Billy had been breaking the rules by showing up at Heather’s place unannounced or by calling on weekends rather than sticking to their safe, weekly schedule.
She thought how strange it was that they had known each other for so long but didn’t know one another at all. That fact had actually been the selling point of the relationship. Neither one would ever have to be at the end of a nagging session or have to argue about things like bills or parenting. He knew her work schedule, her menstrual cycle and he knew how to make her come but he knew nothing about who she really was.
Heather had begun experiencing guilt she couldn’t continue to ignore. Knowing her lover went home to a woman who thought he was faithful sickened her.
Knowing she was the other woman made Heather hate herself.
Heather began lighting the candles in her bedroom.
She was relieved when the rain began falling outside her window. Stormy weather was her favorite and its presence would add to the ambience of the bi-weekly ritual. She pretended the rain would wash away the sins she was about to commit.
Heather quickly scanned each room and walked into the bathroom to pull the shower curtain closed. As she 33
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passed the large round bathroom mirror, she caught her own stare and stopped abruptly.
Don’t do it. Don’t even answer the door.
She saw the plea in her own eyes but she ignored it.
She told herself it would be their last time together.
Heather walked into the kitchen and grabbed a box of cigarettes from the kitchen drawer. She always smoked one when Billy was on his way over and one when Billy was on his way out the door. He wasn’t a smoker but he always shared the second one with her.
Heather stood just outside the front door so the smoke wouldn’t go inside the house. She tried to duck away from any possible neighbor sightings as she wore only a sheer silk nightgown. She didn’t think calling attention to herself was the best idea. The last thing she wanted to do was create anymore potentially pissed off wives. Heather took a drag off the cigarette and thought about the fi rst time she had seen Billy.
She was in her early twenties and was hanging out in a small rock n’ roll club when she saw him walk in. She nudged her friend’s arm and discreetly pointed at him.
“He will be mine,” Heather had said confi dently.
“Okay, let’s go meet him,” Ruth responded without hesitation.
Ruth had been her best friend in high school. By the time they hit their mid-twenties, their friendship had already gotten lost in their different choices. Ruth eventually moved away but Heather would always look back on their friendship with nothing but appreciation.
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“No! Don’t you dare!’ Heather warned.
She had scolded herself. She should have known better. Sharing a secret with Ruth was like writing it on a bathroom wall.
“What? You just said . . .,” Ruth started but Heather cut her off by placing a hand over her friend’s mouth.
She remembered hoping Ruth would oblige and let it go. Instead, she had grabbed Heather’s hand and started walking toward him.
His long dark hair was typical for the early ’90s in which they lived. He was tall and he had a nice build and a handsome face. Heather knew immediately he would become an important part of her life. She felt as though, subconsciously, she had always been aware he would show up one day. It was like she had seen a movie of her life as a child and remembered clearly he had been in several scenes. Upon seeing him, Heather’s fi rst thought had been, “There he is. It’s about time.”
Ruth walked directly to the other guy, whom they later learned was his brother.
“Is this chair being used?” Ruth asked the brother.
“No, no, go ahead,” he had answered, undoubtedly believing she needed it for her own table.
“Thanks,” she answered and sat down. She scooted the chair in and poured herself a beer from their pitcher.
Heather was stunned by her friend’s balls and tried desperately to keep a straight face.
“Hey, I’m Ruth,” she said. Heather had prayed silently her friend wouldn’t tell him what she’d said.
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Ruth turned her attention to Billy and continued.
“And this is my friend Heather. She says you will be hers.”
Ruth had winked at her and then grabbed a French fry from the basket in front of her. Reddened with mortifi cation, Heather had taken the seat Billy offered her.
Despite her embarrassment, her instincts had continued tingling and the familiarity of his presence made the moment surreal.
“Sit down,” he said smiling.
She did sit down. She had also followed him out of the bar a short time later and drove with him into a secluded area of the nearby woods. They had their fi rst encounter on top of his jeep and the experience had been powerful. They had no idea their future was
carving itself out silently amidst the night chirps of hidden animals and the shameful eye of morality. Eventually, they saw each other through two husbands, one wife and four sons, none of whom they had made together.
Heather needed to fi nd a way out of Billy’s world before God judged her too harshly and she landed in the pits of Hell. She had told Billy repeatedly he wasn’t worth her eternity and that he wasn’t worth her guilt, but he persisted and she weakened.
She took another drag of her Marlboro Light and then peeked out the blinds for the tenth time. When his truck fi nally came into view, she panicked.
Heather pulled herself back into the house. She never let him see her waiting for him. She always just opened 36
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the door with a smile and led him down the hall toward her bedroom. It was her safe haven and she barely even spoke to him until they got there.
She watched him park and noticed the bandana through his partially tinted window. He liked to call himself her sex slave. He didn’t mean it literally as Heather usually accepted the submissive role but he would fulfi ll any fantasy or desire she had. She wondered for the length of his trek up the cobblestone walk if he would ever understand how much his presence in her life hurt her.
When he got to the door, he leered at her silky gown and his face took on a look of sick pleasure.
“Move it,” he said with a smile. His eyes were even darker than usual.
“This is the last time,” she said without budging.
She waited for a response and suddenly felt as though she were asking for permission to end the relationship.
She didn’t like the feeling. She had always called the shots in her relationships but when it came to Billy, she seemed to have no say at all.
His eyes darted around the neighborhood and she could tell his forced visibility in the public view was making him nervous. He smiled.
“Okay,” he said.
He didn’t mean it. He would have said anything for access inside.
She smiled and turned away from him. He stepped in, closing and locking the door behind him. She felt him 37
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close behind her as she walked down the hallway and his presence made her hair stand on end.
She stepped into her bedroom and turned to face him. Billy roughly grabbed her by the nape of her neck and he pressed his mouth to hers. He kissed her deeply as he put her arms behind her back. He held her wrists behind her with one hand and he caressed the side of her face with the other. When he spoke, his lips were almost touching hers.
“You don’t want to leave me,” he said softly.
Heather wondered if it were an innocent statement or if it were meant to be a threat; although her body continued to respond, she was angry throughout the rest of his visit.
She was angry during their time in the bedroom. She was even angrier when they were in the living room but she became the angriest when he tried to bring her into her youngest son’s room. She knew he intended to violate her entire house and ruin every square inch for her. He backed himself into Jack’s doorway fi rst and tried pulling her in by her waist.
Heather stood her ground and held onto the door casing tightly. Billy put his hands around her hips and pulled. Although he managed to pull her legs into the room, Heather maintained her grip on the door ledge and refused to join him inside.
“No,” she said shaking her head back and forth.
Billy quickly changed tactics and forced her into a backwards walk through the living room, with one fi nger 38
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to her chest. She wasn’t sure whether or not they were playing anymore and felt for the fi rst time this may not just be a game to him after all.
He stopped in front of her bed and pushed her onto it with little force. Heather quickly backed up to the wall, trying to assess his facial expressions. She needed to determine whether she was at the other end of horseplay or if she were suddenly a candidate for rape.
His expression told her not to resist and Heather knew it was safer to follow her instinct than it was to stand up to him just then.
She decided to play it more carefully and to start avoiding him no matter how much effort it took. She had just started to make a mental list of all the ways she could hide from him when he pulled her onto the mattress by her hair and forced her onto her back.
Heather managed to get her breathing under control.
She started to tell him to stop but he put his hand over her mouth and signaled with a fi nger to the lip for her to stay quiet.
As usual, Heather closed her eyes and took the express to the numb place.
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Chapter 3
Rage Against
the Machine
Heather had a ten-mile drive ahead of her and only twenty minutes before her hearing was scheduled to start. She blamed Billy for the possibility she might be late for court. She had never been good at acknowledging accountability, especially if there were a man handy to blame. Thoughts of Billy continued to distract her and she turned up the volume on her car radio in an attempt to drown them out.
Heather was a social worker for the state child protection agency and her job required frequent court appearances. She often had to testify to the status of each case and with thirty kids on her caseload that meant she often faced confl icting hearings.
Heather usually saw the best qualities in the worst parent and her rapport with most of her families was strong. She worked many hours toward reunifying families after abuse and neglect separated them and was proud of her role in the process. At times, the 40
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responsibility for so many lives took a toll on her and left her fi ghting exhaustion, anger and confusion. She often felt trapped between her roles as representative of the state and champion for individual rights.
Her days were spent in the company of disparate groups of people. If she were a little less aware of herself, Heather could have easily convinced herself she suffered from multiple personality disorder. Two or three days a week, she found herself swimming in an ocean inhabited by attorneys, psychiatrists, judges and many other species of social workers. For the remainder of the week, she would be overcome by the poverty, bad parenting, threatening fathers and dirty children who all had a plea in their eyes. Too often, she felt ill-equipped to determine whether or not their sorrowful looks came from relief of pending danger or from fear of being removed from the only family they’d ever known.
Heather both loved and hated her job. She appreciated that her work drama was time-consuming and that it interfered with her need for personal crisis. She got paid to deal with tragedy all day and was able to return to a semi-normal home life. For Heather, there was never such thing as a normal life, or at least she’d never know because she had nothing to compare it to.
She hated the feeling of being late for court. If her hearing were called and she wasn’t there to represent the state, the hearing was struck and reset. It meant trouble for Heather and it made her agency look bad. Worst of all, it threatened to impede cases which were already moving 41
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painfully slow. Though she often had to run from the parking garage to the fourth fl oor courtrooms, she rarely missed a hearing. Most of her colleagues had faith in her despite the fact her briefcase usually had paperwork caught in its zipper and her clothes didn’t always match.
Heather was dressed in a baby blue business suit and her skirt fell just below her knees. The jacket she chose offset her bottom half with an aura of professionalism.
When she used to wear her badge, it added to the sensation of authority but she had lost it a year before and strangely, her agency still hadn’t replaced it. She knew deep down her human resources department drew the line when she lost her fourth tag in as many years and she was adequately ashamed of herself.
Heather stumbled on her high heel and practica
lly fell out of the car into the parking garage. She hated wearing heels but those shoes were the only ones she could fi nd that morning.
Passing by the elevator, she shook her head at the line of the people waiting. She never opted for it because it was too small and she was already severely claustrophobic.
Even on the days she was late she chose the stairs. She usually ran them so fast that she’d end up on the bottom fl oor before the elevator did anyway.
Heather’s success came not from speed or precision but more from her passion and creativity amidst chaos.
Heather lived most moments of her life in a rush, as though every event were an emergency but she’d found a way to turn the bad habit into a positive work attribute.
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She ran through the downtown streets and wondered if she subconsciously made herself late for everything. In therapy, she had discovered she often threw hurdles in her own way as a diversion to her thoughts and feelings.
She was trying to teach herself how to live life from the inside. It was a dark and scary place with many secrets but something told her it was time for a visit.
Heather couldn’t hide her desires any better than she could hide her expressions. Her passions usually fl oated to the surface and waved proudly to the world whether she wanted them to or not. She had never been accused of having an excess of willpower but had often been accused of being too controlling. Heather was the fi rst to admit she tried to maintain control over the people and events in her life. She didn’t feel guilty about it because she never abused her position in people’s lives. On the contrary, she had always used the need for control to take care of them.
At least, she thought she had.
The morning docket was before Judge Oliva and Heather’s case involved a father who took good care of his children but had lost them to the state anyway. After the mother overdosed on pills in a thwarted suicide attempt, the child protection unit presented themselves to the hard
-working, single dad of two and removed his children because of marijuana in his system. They were placed in foster homes where they suffered the fi rst abuse of their lives by adults who didn’t have even a shred of attachment to them. Heather had come to court to recommend the 43