Happily (N)ever After Contest
Title: Thursday
Characters: Andre, Claudine, Eric, Jake, Mickey, Pam, Rasul, Sookie, and Stan; unseen but present: Alexei, Appius, Hadley, Jason, Sigebert, Sophie-Anne, and Wybert
Word Count: 10,468
Pen Name: esquilo-negligenciadas
Beta: seastarr08
Standard Disclaimer: Characters listed above are the sole property of Ms. Charlaine Harris, long may she write (but not too long, lest her books become like Deuteronomy or Laurell K. Hamilton's work); scenario inspired by the song "Thursday" by Morphine. This work of fiction was intended to amuse without providing monetary gain, and any lawyers who should come to read this are politely asked to keep that in mind.
Special Disclaimer: Mobsters are violent people, and there's no shortage of them in this story. Consider yourself warned.
Summary: A bar, an affair, and a corrupt Congressman-there's a reason some fruit is forbidden, and sometimes the threat of violence is actually a promise.
Author's Note: I'd like to thank seastarr08 for volunteering to beta this entry, especially in light of my confidence-inspiring tweet about having the emotional range of a toadstool. In terms of things you might want to know before reading, a moll is the female companion of a gangster and David Attenborough is a naturalist.
She was there when I walked in the door, like she had been every Thursday for the past three weeks. Perched on one of the crap stools at the end of the bar, toying with the straw in her drink (a G&T, I thought, but had never asked) and staring into the space between her and the pool tables across the room. She never spoke to anyone but the bartender, and lately she hadn't even needed to do that. Just sat, sipped at two or three drinks, puffed occasionally at a cigarette, and stared, glassy-eyed, at nothing. Mostly nothing, anyway.
We all knew who she was. Hard not to, in a bar like this and her being married to who she was. Half the guys in here were indirectly employed by her husband or one of his associates, and all of them were rough-and-tumble, dirty-hands types. It was like the Queen of England slumming with a bunch of coal miners, and we couldn't figure out what to do with her. So we ignored her, she ignored us, and everyone was happy.
Except for her. She was clearly miserable, and just as clearly wanted to be left alone to her misery. I got that-I'd spent plenty of time in my misguided youth wallowing in my own self-pity and staring deeply into my beer, but it didn't sit right to let her keep it up so long. Especially not after she kept watching me play pool.
I was midway through my first game of the afternoon and well into my third pint when I felt her eyes latch onto me. I'd been taking it slow, going easy on my opponent, but knowing she was watching made me want to put on a show, so I finished the rack quickly and flashily, then wandered back to the bar, cue still in hand.
"Would you like to shoot a game?"
She gave me a little sideways glare. "No."
"You sure?"
Another glare. "Yes."
"Well, then, would you like some company?"
She turned to face me then, pulling her righteous indignation on like body armor. "Do you know who I am?"
"Of course. You're the beautiful woman who comes in every Thursday to drink alone and watch me while I shoot pool." I grinned at her, knowing the type. Throw a little charm and playfulness at her and she'd melt.
"I'm not watching you." She gave me a sly little smile. "I'm watching your ass."
"My ass?" I feigned surprise.
She nodded. "Mm-hm. One of the finest specimens I've ever seen. Truly a joy to observe, even captive as it is."
I hadn't expected a sense of humor, but I liked it. "You know, if you came and shot a round with me, you could get a much better view."
"Oh, I'm not sure. I might spook it if I get too close."
"Not a problem. Very friendly, my ass. Hardly gets spooked at all, and certainly not by gorgeous ladies."
She laughed a little, and it was light and clear as a bell. "In that case..." She started to signal to the bartender, presumably for another gin and tonic, but I stopped her.
"You are not allowed to drink one of those while you play." I pointed at her tumbler. "Beer or nothing."
"Fine." She flagged the barman down and ordered a brown ale, downed about half of it in one go, then followed me back to the pool table.
She was a surprisingly good shot, and held her beer well. Even so, we only made it through one game before the urge to peel off each other's clothes got too strong and we retreated across the street to the Wagon Wheel, a cheap motel that was only saved from being entirely classless by not having an hourly rate. We were on each other as soon as the door shut, but I pulled back after a moment, yielding to the single rational thought that was bubbling out of the tar pit my brain had become.
"You sure about this?"
"Yes."
"Your husband...?"
She stepped back. "You afraid of him?"
I shook my head. "No."
"You should be."
"I know." She smiled then, and it was a strange mix of predatory and resigned.
"I am, but then again I know he'll kill me someday, somehow." She took a deep breath, shoving that glimpse of sadness back down. "Anyway, he's fooling around on me, so I might as well fool around right back."
"Good enough for me."
What followed was hands down the most amazing sex of my life, and I had this sense that it could only get better, between the two of us. The things she could do with her tongue alone were mind-blowing, but the way we came together was like nothing else, like we were each sculpted with the other in mind. It was fantastic and transcendental and completely fucking terrifying.
She didn't stay long. Just long enough to almost get used to the feeling of her nestled up against me, her tiny hand reaching across my chest. She paused with her hand on the door, her clothing once again in place, all evidence of our romp banished from her perfectly blonde hair.
"What's your name?"
"Eric. Eric Northman."
"I'll see you next week, Eric."
"I'll be waiting, Sookie." She was gone before I'd finished saying her name, leaving only her scent and crumpled bedsheets to testify that she'd been there at all.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
The ease with which we settled into our routine was both nice and extremely worrying. Nice, because it meant that we could get the ritual couple of beers and game of pool out of the way quickly, leaving us lots of time to fuck, and fuck we did. We christened all the surfaces in nearly every one of the Wagon Wheel's rooms, and it was a strange week when there wasn't an extra charge for damaging something in our frenzy.
It was worrying, though, because we were far more comfortable with each other than two people who got together once a week to bump pelvises should be. Sure, there's a degree of comfort to be gained from knowing exactly how she reacts when you nibble at her ribcage just under her left breast (squirming hips, right hand grabbing my head, and a breathy sigh), but that's physical comfort. We were emotionally comfortable, too, and after a few weeks I found myself telling her about my childhood, speaking words that I'd not even thought in a dozen years or more.
"You must be part of the organization, hanging out in that bar and knowing that I was serious when I said he'd kill me."
"I am."
"What do you do for them-collections?"
"I used to be in tech support, but now I manage a cleaning service."
"Tech support? No offense, but you don't strike me as the nerdy, computer-type."
"I'm not. I was a troubleshooter."
"Right. They pointed you at the trouble and you shot it."
"Precisely."
"And now you clean up after the troubleshooters."
"Not exactly. I manage the cleaners, make sure that the messes are destroyed, not moved."
"And how do you do that?"
"I own a scrap yard."
"You own a scrap yard."
"Legally. My name's on the paperwork, but I don't really own it. Sophie-Anne does."
"Ah." I looked down at her, and she had this wicked smile on, then she rolled over to face me and flicked my nipple. As I groaned, she asked, "How did you get involved with them?"
There it was. The question whose complete answer, the one I wanted to give her, meant a trip through my childhood.
"What do you know about the Nordics?"
"The what?"
"The Nordics-those cold countries up in the north of Europe?"
"Oh, those. Next to nothing."
"Figures. I was born in Åland, which is an archipelago midway between Finland and Sweden. They're technically part of Finland, but they speak Swedish. My mother was kind of a whore, so when she didn't know which of the seven or eight guys she'd been sleeping with was my father, she made up a name for the birth certificate-Thomas J. Northman-and spelled my name with a 'c' instead of a 'k,' like a normal person.
"When I was about four, she met this American soldier. Who knows why he was in Åland, since there are no U.S. military stations anywhere near there, but she decided she was in love with him, so she packed me up and moved to America and they got married. Somewhere in the course of all that, she convinced him to legally adopt me so I could have American citizenship, too, which was about the last useful thing she did before he got her hooked on meth."
"Meth? Ew."
I grunted. "Yeah, he was a keeper. Drunk all the time, kept my mother high as a kite, beat on me and my brothers."
"Brothers?"
"Yeah, one of 'em was about my age from a previous girlfriend who'd died and stuck him with the kid. The other was born when I was seven."
"Oh."
"Yeah. Anyway, when I was fourteen I shot up and was suddenly taller than the bastard, so I started fighting back. When I was fifteen I got sick of it and started couch-surfing. Then when I graduated, I got the fuck out of that town as fast as I could and started fighting for money. I was good at it, and made a lot of cash. After a couple of years and more than a few people beaten to within an inch of their lives, Sophie Anne approached me. The rest you can guess."
"What about your brothers?"
"David could take care of himself, and anyway I'm pretty sure he had college plans and left almost as soon as I did. Alex...was scrappy, but I wouldn't be surprised if his head's messed up, growing up in that environment."
"And you're not messed up?"
"Oh, undoubtedly, but Alex..." I shrugged, because there wasn't really a way to explain how off that kid had always been.
I'd been careful to keep my tone level, my words neutral, but as she looked up at me, I could tell she got it, knew how much it hurt me to talk about my past. It was as though, for her, my eyes really were windows to my soul, and I really didn't want to think about that. She was silent for several minutes, just playing with that nipple and leaving me to my thoughts, but after a while she climbed on top of me and fucked me until I forgot the pain.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
"Where does your husband think you are?" It was a stupid question; stupid to bring him up, stupid to even acknowledge that she had a life outside this bed in this dingy motel, but I was actually curious and great sex goes a long way toward loosening tongues.
"Book club."
"And he buys that?"
"It helps that there's actually a book club."
"But you don't go."
"No, but my friends run it, so I read what they read and they cover for me if he asks."
"And your friends approve of me?"
"Not you, specifically, since I haven't told them anything about you, but certainly the idea of you. They hate that I married him in the first place." She buried her face in my chest, and I gripped her shoulder, pulling her even closer.
"Then why did you?" She tensed at that, I suppose predictably, and my hand started running up and down her back unbidden, subconsciously soothing away the hurt.
"He wasn't so bad at first. Real nice, actually. Sent me a lot of pretty flowers, always made time for me, that sort of thing. About the time we got engaged, things started to go to shit. It was slow, but by the time I realized I was a moll in all but name I was too entrenched to get out clean." She went quiet for a long time, then, and looked so sad and vulnerable that I couldn't help but press a delicate kiss to the top of her head. I know, it's laughable-a refined brawler like me reduced to a romantic-but she made me want to go against my every instinct and be the protector, put her well-being before my own.
"He's dangerous, you know. Very violent and jealous."
"I can handle him."
"I hope so."
"I'd kill him for you, if you asked."
"Why would you do that?"
"I like you, and he makes you unhappy. I've killed for less." She almost seemed to consider it, then shook her head violently.
"No. No. I won't let you bring yourself down to his level."
"Lover, I am his level."
Another head-shake. "You're not. I won't say you're better than him, because I'm certainly not in a position to judge, but at least you have principles. Andre sells his twice a month to the highest bidder."
Just like that, the seal was broken. For months, we'd refrained from mentioning the Congressman by name, pretending that if we didn't say it, what we were doing wouldn't matter to anyone but us. That simple act of speaking his name, though, pulled the world back into focus. Suddenly it wasn't just us and the bed; it was us, and the bed, and Andre Paul's network just waiting to catch us and blow us out of the water. Sookie realized it a moment after me, her tiny hand flying to her mouth, and then she was up, pulling on her clothes as fast as she could while lighting up a panic cigarette. I blinked and she was gone.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
I didn't see her in person for five weeks. She was on the TV once every few days, clearly doing as much high-profile charity work as she could, though whether it was out of guilt or comprised some bizarre self-preservation strategy, I couldn't say. I did miss her, terribly, and it only took one missed "date" for me to realize that I was done for. We may have started out as fuck buddies, but we weren't anymore. Fuck buddies missed each other's bodies when apart; I missed her. Her laugh, her smile, the way you couldn't tell our hair apart when it was tangled together on the pillow. I wanted to be angry about how much she'd gotten under my skin, but I couldn't muster up the energy. Instead, I waited for her every Thursday, shooting pool for hours so I wouldn't look like a lost puppy.
The day she finally showed up, I was out in the lot, having a cigarette. Sure, I could smoke in the bar, but when the weather permitted I preferred to take it outside; it was a courtesy thing: if I gave myself cancer, fine, but it didn't seem polite to inflict it on someone else. She pulled up next to me, parking her shiny silver Audi so that my 'Cuda was in between us, a massive steel barrier in bright orange. I leaned on the roof and watched her get out, drinking her in like an alcoholic who's just broken out of a complex of teetotalers.
Until I noticed the sunglasses.
She was wearing a nice suit, very business-appropriate, but the sleeves were long and looked heavy for this weather. The sunglasses were almost understandable, since it was getting toward dusk, but there was no need for them to be that huge. She looked like an insect, with half her face hidden behind plastic lenses. It made me see red, and before either of us could say anything, I was around my car and cradling her face in my hands.
"What did he do to you?"
"Oh, this?" She gestured vaguely at the sunglasses, trying to be flippant. "Andre's been having a bad month in Washington, and then I wore the wrong lingerie."
"The wrong lingerie? What the hell does that even mean?"
She snorted. "Fucked if I know. Look, can we just go inside?"
"No. You deserve better than cheap beer and a shitty motel room. You, sit in my car for a minute while I go settle my tab, and then I'll take us somewhere nice." I could see her gearing up to fight me, so I shook my head. "Sookie, I'm serious. I didn't ask for your agreement. You deserve to be treated like a lady, not a punching bag for your shit-for-brains husband."
She opened her mouth to get the last word in, then stopped. "Fine."
"That's my girl." I kissed her on the forehead, then opened the door and helped her into my car. "Be right back."
We'd been driving for several minutes before she stopped staring at my dashboard and broke the silence. "Am I?"
"Are you what?"
"Your girl. You said I was your girl."
Shit. Had I said that? I must have. No reason for her to make it up. Which meant that not only had I broken the cardinal rule of fuck buddies (don't get attached), I'd let slip that I had. Only one hope to salvage this: I shrugged. "Do you want to be?"
"I don't know." Her tone was sad, and when I glanced away from the road to check on her, she was staring at her hands, knotted together in her lap. There wasn't really anything to say, so I concentrated on driving us out of the city.
About halfway to Boulder, I pulled off the Turnpike, winding my way through the suburbs until we made it to Stan's, a little bar-and-grill joint just outside Standley Lake Park with a deck overlooking the lake. I knew the owner from back in my trouble-shooting days, only he'd had the wherewithal to get the hell out when he got his old lady knocked up; now, I was just about the only mobster welcome in his place, since he knew I wouldn't bring my work with me.
I was tempted to ask for a table on the patio, but with the good weather it would be full and I didn't want to risk Sookie being recognized, so I asked for one next to the window, where it would be more private and she'd still get the view. As we passed the kitchen entrance, Stan himself came out and beckoned to me. I frowned, but leaned over to speak quietly into her ear.
"Lover, my friend wishes to have a word. I'll meet you at the table in a minute." She tensed, and I gave her a reassuring squeeze. "Don't worry, when I say he's a friend, I mean it. He was in the business once, but now his allegiance is his own." She frowned, but nodded ever so slightly before starting after the confused hostess.
In the few steps it took to cross the room to him, I made a quick assessment. He looked as nerdy and unassuming as ever, from the horn-rim glasses to the pressed button-down (short-sleeved in deference to the July heat); it was what had made him such an effective contract killer, aside from the obvious disconnect. Today, though, he looked oddly concerned. It was subtle, but I'd spent enough time with him to know how to read him.
"Stan."
"Eric. Was that who I thought it was?"
"It was."
"Her husband?"
"Doesn't know, nor do I intend for him to know unless it's because I'm about to pump a pair into his brain."
"Ah. Are you serious about her?"
I couldn't help but glance toward the table. "Far more than I want to be." He started to ask the inevitable follow-up, but I shook my head. "It's hard to say, and I'd rather not think about it. Right now, I just want her to have a nice dinner."
Stan nodded knowingly and waved me off, leaving me to join my ladyfriend at a corner table, grinning broadly as I sat to ease some of the tension that had built over the course of the trip. Her answering smile was weak, but promising because it made it to her eyes.
"So...how's book club?"
"Still not going. Went and sat in a park for a few hours instead."
"And how was that?"
"Boring. Lonely. I missed you, you know. I just didn't want to get you killed."
"I missed you, too."
"What have you been doing on Thursdays, then?"
"Playing pool, same as usual."
"Anyone else been staring at your ass?"
"Don't think so. Wasn't really in a state to notice." We laughed, then, awkwardly, and were saved by the arrival of our server coming to get drink orders.
"Gin and tonic, please," she said, not bothering to look up from her menu. I smiled and made my own order.
"Whisky sour." That got her attention-her eyebrows shot into her hair and she finally removed the sunglasses, staring skeptically across the table. I chuckled, responding to her unspoken question, "What? I drink things other than beer. I'd have scotch straight-up if I thought Stan had anything good back there, but the man's a Texas heathen who wouldn't know a good scotch if it ripped his ear off."
"And you're from where, again?"
"Åland by way of Montana. Doesn't mean I act like it."
"No, that's true. You're certainly more...inventive than I would expect someone from Montana to be." The drinks had arrived, and she was sipping at hers coyly, making eyes at me over the rim. It was good that she was loosening up, but the bruise rimming her left eye was putting a damper on my own mood. Nonetheless, we managed to have a very agreeable meal, aided only a little by the three G&Ts she consumed, and when we left she was hanging affably from my arm and giggling. Her good humor continued for several minutes after I loaded her into the 'Cuda, up until she noticed the clock.
"I didn't realize it had gotten so late."
I frowned and look over at her, glancing at the clock on the way by. "It's not that late."
"No, but too late for the Wagon Wheel."
"Lover, tonight wasn't about getting you to the Wagon Wheel. If I'd wanted that, I would have followed you into the bar like a lovesick teenager, rather than dragging you all the way out here."
"No...I get that, but I've missed you."
"Well, you've had me all evening. Maybe not naked, but there's always next week."
She was silent for a long time after that, and I concentrated on driving. I'd only had two drinks, but the last thing she needed was for us to get into a crash and basically hand this business to the media, so I forced myself to keep the speed down near the limit.
"Andre's going back to Washington on Sunday, and he'll be gone until August. He was really only back so he could pork Sophie-Anne." There was no good way to respond to that, so I kept silent, and after a moment she continued. "The staff are due a vacation, so I could tell them to take the evening off sometime this week, maybe Monday or Tuesday, and you could come spend the night."
I frowned. That was really a terrible plan, but somehow I couldn't say no, not with her sounding all wistful and unsure. "Uh...yeah, I could do that. It would be nice to see you before next Thursday." I looked briefly across the car at her, grinning broadly. She gave another of those weak smiles in return, so I reached across the gear lever to grasp her hand, stroking it gently with my thumb until we came to the exit and I had to downshift.
I pulled into the bar lot and around back, parking well away from her Audi, just in case. Neither of us made any move to get out right away, preferring to sit together in the dark and stare straight ahead. Eventually, I held out a hand, palm up.
"Give me your phone. I'll put my number in, and you can call me when you sort out your staff."
She smiled as she handed me her Blackberry, asking cheekily, "When I call, will you come with bells on?"
I smirked, working my way through the menus. "If you really want me to."
"No, that's alright. I'd just take them off, anyway."
I handed the phone back. "I put myself in as David Attenborough, since you spend so much time observing my ass."
"Okay." She sounded annoyed, so I explained.
"Lover, I'm trying to keep us alive. My number's not a secret, so if someone looks it up, they'll find me. At least if it's under an assumed name, they'll be forced to check it, rather than just seeing my name in your contacts and coming after me, and that'll take time. It's a stopgap, but it's the best I can do."
"Fine." She bit her lip, and it was all I could do not to jump her. "Could I get a kiss before I go, at least?" My only answer was to growl and drag her across the car into my lap.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
The call came late in the morning on Sunday, when I was frying myself some bacon and eggs, so it took several rings while I launched myself across the room and back to get it and get back to my stove before any part of my breakfast had a chance to skip straight over 'done' and into 'burnt.'
"Speak."
"Mr. Attenborough?"
My usual, surly approach to phone conversation was abruptly dropped at the sound of her voice. "Yes?"
"I'm terribly sorry to call you on a weekend, but I've only just realized I never got back to you on which meeting time fits better into my schedule."
"Ah. No problem at all. If you will allow me a moment to retrieve my own calendar?"
"Of course." I set the phone down and pulled the frying pan off the heat, unloading it onto a plate I had ready before sticking it in the microwave to keep warm.
"Ah, yes, I see. Now, was it the first proposed time, or the second, that works for you?"
"The first." Monday night. Done.
"Excellent. I shall make sure security knows to let you through." Hopefully that would be enough of a reminder to turn off the alarm system, because I sure as hell was not approaching the house from the front.
"Oh, yes, please do. It would be awfully embarrassing if they stopped me."
I chuckled. "Quite so. Well, I shall see you then."
"Mm-hm. I look forward to it!" I hung up the phone and set it on the counter, staring at it briefly in confusion. I had not expected her to take the Attenborough farce that far, and it was certainly impressive that she had, but it made me wonder about possible bugs in her phone and around her house.
Then again, bugs could be disabled easily enough. It was the possibility of security cameras that Sookie didn't know about that made me nervous. Even if she disabled the main security system, there was still the possibility that Andre didn't trust his wife and had a secondary system in place. If that was the case, then it was fairly likely that he also tracked her car, in which case we were as good as busted before we even got to the really risky fun.
I shook my head and went to retrieve the plate from the microwave. There would be time for worrying over every possibility later. Now, breakfast.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
Around dusk, I pulled into the lot attached to the park around the corner from Sookie's house; it was a dangerous game we were playing, and I wasn't going to make it too easy for Andre to find us. My approach was unconventional, which was part of the reason I'd come at dusk, but after ten or fifteen minutes I was standing on her front porch, staring at my feet to avoid any video surveillance pointed at me. She yanked the door open almost immediately after I rang the bell and dragged me inside, not that I was arguing.
We stood there in the entryway for a moment, staring at each other, before I leaned down and explained, using the most appropriate method at my disposal, how much I'd missed her. Eventually, though, she broke the kiss, gasping a little through deliciously-swollen lips. I smiled and pulled the bug-sweeper out of my pocket, mouthing 'bedroom?'
She grimaced, then took my hand and led me upstairs to a room so large it deserved to be called a bedchamber; I managed not to gape, but only just barely. The decor was warm and homey, probably designed to remind Sookie of her southern roots, but the way she was gripping my hand told me she didn't really feel at home here. I gave her a reassuring smile and squeezed her hand before dropping it and doing the fastest sweep of the room I could manage, mentally cataloguing all the ways I could make use of the furniture before I left in the morning.
My sweep turned up nothing, and while I would've liked to think it was because Andre didn't want anyone listening in to his sexcapades, it made me incredibly nervous. Even so, I switched the little device off with a frown, setting it on the dresser.
"We're clear." I hoped I sounded convincing. I turned to look at her, still standing in the doorway with a worried expression, and cracked a broad grin. "Come here, lover."
She crossed the room to me slowly, but when she got within reach, I hoisted her into the air by the waist. She squealed enticingly and wrapped her legs around my hips, bringing her face to mine for another kiss, one that started searingly but ended sweet and lovely. Between that kiss and just how close she was, my pants were becoming incredibly tight, and if the little hip-wiggle I got as we broke apart was any indication, she was acutely aware of what she was doing to me.
She wasn't going to leave it at that, though. No, merely having my body at her beck and call wasn't enough-she wanted my soul, too, and I'd give it to her without a second thought.
"I've made up my mind."
"About what?"
"Being your girl. I will, but only if you'll be my man."
"Done."
"'Done?" She sounded incredulous, and I had to chuckle, just a little bit.
"Sookie," she perked up at that; I almost never called her by name, "I've been yours for months, whether you realized it or not."
"Really?"
"Really. You think I'd tell just anyone about my childhood? I could've told you the abridged origin story, starting with the fighting, but I wanted you to know everything."
"Oh." She went quiet then, and detached herself from my waist to go sit on the end of her plush, California-king-sized bed, patting the space next to her after a moment. I sat, and as she leaned into my side, my arm went around her. The motion was as comfortable as if we'd been doing it for years, but to my knowledge it was the first time. She took a deep breath and started in on her own tale of woe.
"I grew up in this tiny town in northern Louisiana called Bon Temps." I nodded, because that didn't surprise me at all-when she wanted to, she could be the perfect southern belle. "When I was seven, my parents drowned when their car was swept off a bridge during a flash flood. My older brother, Jason, and I went to live with my grandmother, which I'm sure couldn't have been easy for her. But she raised us well, and we went to college, and life was pretty good, even if finances were tight.
"Right after I graduated, when I was looking for work, I got a call from my cousin Hadley." She felt me tense. "Yeah, Sophie-Anne's Hadley. We hadn't spoken in years, because she'd gotten into drugs and wandered off, but somewhere in there she'd moved here and hooked up with your people. She was calling because one of Sophie-Anne's friends needed a personal assistant, and she knew I'd just graduated and was looking for work, so she thought she'd suggest me. I thought it could be a good career move, so I flew out, interviewed, and before I knew it I had an apartment in Englewood and a busy job in Littleton, working for up-and-coming politician Andre Paul.
"I told you he was nice at the start, and he was, otherwise I wouldn't have dated him, much less married him. I was out with Hadley a few months after the wedding, keeping busy while Andre and Sophie-Anne had a 'meeting,' and she started bitching about how Sophie-Anne didn't appreciate her, how she was always coming over smelling like sex and men, that sort of thing, and it was like a light went on in my head. We were the same, the two of us-molls with fancy titles-and there was no feasible way for either of us to get out.
"I looked anyway, and even called Jason for advice. He works in the FBI's white collar crime division down in New Orleans, so I figured if anyone had any suggestions for dealing with a mob-connected politician husband, it was him. I missed him, though, and when he called back, Andre picked up. That was the first time he hit me, but it didn't take long for him to downgrade his reasons from 'potentially ratting me out to the feds' to 'wrong lingerie.'"
I pulled her closer, because she was starting to shake, and whispered soothing things in broken Swedish into her hair. After a while, she settled, clutching at my chest through my t-shirt like it was a life-preserver in a hurricane.
"Hey." I tapped her chin lightly, and she looked up at me. "There's no such thing as 'wrong lingerie.' Andre's an idiot for thinking there is." That got me the smile I'd been looking for, even weak and watered-down, and I smiled back, leaning down to kiss her. As was frequently the case with us, the kiss quickly turned to other things, and it seemed like only moments later I was buried balls-deep in her, her walls pulsing around me as her eyes rolled back in her head and she screamed my name.
I wasn't done with her yet, though, not at all. I slowed my rhythm, drawing out her orgasm as long as I could, and as I felt her start to relax, I hiked her legs over my shoulders and leaned forward, brushing my nose along the line of her jaw and sucking lightly at her pulse.
"Look at me, Lover." Her eyes snapped open, and as I moved away from her neck and back into view, they locked onto mine. Maybe it was all the soul-bearing we'd done lately, but looking into her eyes was like coming home, like staring into the deep, blue waters of the Baltic Sea I barely remembered. It was as close as I'd ever come to a religious experience, and it scared me shitless.
I didn't realize I'd frozen mid-thrust until she bumped her ass up against my thighs, but it was all the reminder I needed to get moving again and carry us both over into oblivion.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
We spent most of the night curled around each other, and while she slept soundly in my arms, I'd barely manage to doze off when I'd hear a branch cracking against the house, or Andre's face would appear in my mind, and I'd start awake, paranoia on full alert. After the first few times, I stopped trying to sleep and just held her, marvelling that something so soft and delicate could burrow so far under my skin. She'd grown on me like a particularly virulent strain of cancer, and I was beginning to think that cutting her out of my life would open a gaping wound in my soul.
Unless, of course, Andre killed us first.
It was that possibility that drove me from her bed in the pre-dawn gloom, putting all my reluctance into the goodbye kiss and promising that I'd be at the bar on Thursday. I slipped back over the fence, and over the neighbors' fence, back to the park and my 'Cuda, parked as far away from the streetlights as it could get. I made it about halfway across the grass field before she rounded the corner.
She was a picture of suburban perfection, walking her corgi in a pink tracksuit and pearls, her blonde hair pulled into a high ponytail with nary a hair gone astray. She was a tiny thing, and as I continued to my car, she rushed to intercept me. The pose she struck when she came to a halt on the sidewalk just before I got there was pure attitude, cocked hip and bored-to-death expression. I gave her a skeptical look but obligingly stopped.
"Can I help you?"
"No, but I'm going to help you." She paused just long enough to let me get my incredulous expression primed, then dropped the bomb on me. "I know you're sneaking off from Congressman Paul's wife, and I wouldn't be surprised if half the neighborhood has figured it out, even with all this tricky parking-in-a-public-lot and leaving-before-dawn shit."
"And?"
"Judging from your scars and the way you're standing like you expect a fight to break out, you know what he's into, and how dead you're likely to be when he finds out. And he will find out, because even if I hate Andre and think Sookie should have left him years ago, I'm hardly the majority in this neighborhood. Someone will tell him, and then he will kill you, and probably her while he's at it. I'd get the fuck out of town while you still can."
"Look, lady-"
"Pam."
"Pam. I don't know what your angle is here, and I appreciate the warning, but I can handle myself."
"I'm sure you can." If her sarcasm had been any thicker, it would have condensed in the air between us and started dripping onto the pavement. "Yourself, yes. Andre, sure. All of his friends and his friends' employees, no. Even if you're some big-shot in the organization, there is no way they will be more loyal to you than to their paychecks. Now take your free advice, get in this orange monstrosity, and get your ass as far away from here and Sookie as you can. Maybe you'll both survive."
She turned on the toe of her perfect little tennis shoe and continued on her walk, dragging her corgi with her. I frowned and unlocked the 'Cuda, barely resisting the urge to gun it out of the damn neighborhood. No way was I running, at least not yet, and not without Sookie. I'd see her on Thursday, and I could spend my time until then setting up an insurance plan.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
"Are you Eric?"
I turned away from the pool table, and whatever I was expecting to see there, she was not it; she was tall, nearly as tall as me, and supermodel-gorgeous, with a delicious curvy figure and glossy black hair. Before I'd met Sookie, I would've been all over her, but instead I crossed my arms and fed her the standard tough-guy line.
"Maybe. Who's asking?"
She frowned and put her phone to her face. "Tall, blonde, surly, and playing pool?" I heard a tinny response, the woman mumbled, "Mm-hm," and put the phone against her shoulder.
"My name is Claudine, I'm one of the book-club friends, and I'm only here because Sookie needs to talk to you." She made no attempt to hide her contempt for the bar, finishing her little introduction by thrusting the phone at me. I took it from her with a frown.
"Hello?"
"Eric! Thank God you're alright!"
"I'm fine. Are you? Where are you?"
"At book club. I think Andre has someone following me."
I swore, violently and extensively, then responded, "Lover, we need to get you away from here. Where is book club? I'll come get you."
"No! No, Eric, no. I can't let you do that."
"Why the hell not?"
"Because I'm not sure he knows who you are, yet. If you come here, he definitely will. I need you to get yourself safe. I'll be fine."
"No, you won't. You said it yourself, he's a violent, jealous man. He'll kill you," I hissed.
"And if I let you take me away, he'll kill us both. I'm sorry, honey, but I chose this path when I married him. I always knew he'd be the death of me, and I can't let him be the death of you, too."
"Sookie!"
"Eric, no. Promise me you'll go. Promise me you'll get away, and be safe, and live for a long time after I'm gone."
"I can't."
On the other end, she made a childish noise, then demanded that I put Claudine back on. I thrust the phone back at her.
"She wants to talk to you."
She glared at me, clearly convinced I was an idiot, and took the phone. Before she put it to her face, though, she took a jab at me, spitting out, "She won't admit it, but she loves you, jackass. Don't make this any harder than you need to." She turned away, leaving me sputtering.
She loved me. Well, her friend said she did. Did I love her? Probably. Was I going to admit it? Not out loud, not with Sookie only present over the phone. The real question was whether this changed anything. Logically, no, but I couldn't help but feel that now there was a lot more to lose. I sighed heavily and gestured at Claudine that she should hand me the phone again.
"Okay."
"Eric?"
"I'll go. Doing it's going to break me, but I'll go. I can't make any promises beyond that, and if you get yourself fucking killed, I can't be held responsible for my actions."
"Eric..."
"Stop, Sookie. That's all I can promise. I'll go, and I'll put together a plan, and then I am coming back and getting you the fuck away from your abusive ass-cunt of a husband."
"I wish you wouldn't. I wish you'd just go and forget about me, but I know you can't do that."
"Damn right I can't."
"I know. Fuck." I heard her take a shuddering breath, and knew she was on the verge of tears. "Goodbye, Eric."
"Goodbye, älskling." The line clicked, and I fell back against the pool table, dropping the phone onto the felt and burying my hands in my hair. I felt, rather than saw, as Claudine leaned against the table next to me and settled her hand on my shoulder.
"Hey." I didn't respond, so she continued, "It's terrible that it has to be this way. Still, you've made her truly happy. The happiest she's been in years." I finished raking my hands across my scalp, letting them fall back to my lap, and looked at her. What she saw in my face must have disturbed her, because she patted my hand hesitantly and stood, her smile awkward and pained.
"It'll all work out, somehow. If not in this life, maybe the next." The corner of my mouth tugged upward, but it wasn't really a smile.
"Thanks. I'll keep that in mind." She continued to stand there, unsure, so I waved vaguely at the door. "Go, before the bar smell sticks to you." The speed of her exit caused napkins to flutter, even pinned under drinks, and after another few seconds I hauled myself up off the table, pulled on my best thug face, and went to pay my tab.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
I was in Kansas. More specific than that, I didn't know, and I didn't give a shit. I was driving away from the only woman I'd ever loved-probably the only one who'd ever loved me-leaving her to the whims of her violently jealous husband, who no doubt knew by now that I'd been screwing her for months. I wasn't even sure where I was going, other than away; I'd thought about dropping in on David and his family in Miami, and I could probably get a flight back to the motherland if I rode I-70 all the way to the end.
But neither of those places was where I needed to be.
Sometime after midnight, I pulled off the interstate and into a crap motel. Sure, I could've driven much further, but I couldn't muster up the interest. Within ten minutes of pulling up to the front office, I was collapsing fully-clothed onto a musty double, my feet dangling off the end.
I woke up mid-morning on Friday and stared at the ceiling for a good hour, trying to decide what to do next. The real problem was not that I didn't know what to do, because I did, and it was to turn my ass around and drag Sookie away; technically, if I didn't go back, I didn't even need to decide where to go until I hit Illinois, but still couldn't move. Paralyzed by indecision.
Eventually, I got myself out of bed long enough to pay for another night (the teenager behind the desk was kind enough to point out that I looked like shit), then went for a ride around the "town." I was having a sub-par sandwich in a tiny diner full of formica when a headline scrolling across the bottom of the 24-hour news channel playing behind the counter caught my eye.
WIFE OF CONGRESSMAN ANDRE PAUL (R-CO) FOUND DROWNED
The rage was like an old friend, rushing up to meet me and gripe about how long it had been, so the grin I turned on the waitress who came to ask if something was wrong with my food was especially crazed. I managed to force a response, but it came out as more of a growl than words.
"It's fine. Do you have a computer, or a phone with internet, anywhere in here?" She nodded, pulling her own phone out and handing it to me, her hand shaking violently. I took it with a smile and a "Thanks," then set out to poke at the tiny buttons with my substantially-less-tiny fingers.
It took a while to get to the story, but within fifteen minutes I was leaving the diner, the poor young lady's phone left on the counter with a substantial tip. I didn't have a plan, not yet, but I had six hours to figure one out. Four and a half if I really pushed it.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
It didn't take long for Andre to find me. I'd barely been checked into the Wagon Wheel for an hour, lying on the bed where we'd first been together and watching the news, when his thugs busted the door in. I wouldn't give them the satisfaction of knowing they'd startled me, so I barely glanced at them.
"Rasul, Mickey, and young Mr. Purifoy. I'm not sure if I should feel honored that Andre thought so much of me to send three of you, or annoyed that he didn't think I'd be enough trouble to rate the 'Berts. What do you think, Jake?"
"You know as well as I that he's not paid to think, Northman. Are you going to come along, or are we going to need to drag you?" Rasul was the spokeman, then. I wasn't surprised, since he had the most sense.
I smiled and clicked the television off, standing to put the remote back on top of the TV. "Rasul, you know me too well to think I'd let you take me without a fight."
"That is true, regrettably. Have it your way. Boys?"
All commentary aside, Andre had picked a good team; they were quick, especially Mickey, and they had a heavy-hitter with them in Jake Purifoy, but the most important point was that there were three of them and one of me. This fight was going to be fun, but I had no delusions that I was going to win. If I applied myself, though, I could take a couple of them out before they got me down and make their jobs that much more difficult.
Jake was the first to engage, taking a running leap and dragging me down with him to the floor. Not a bad move, since the whole point of this adventure was to subdue me, but he didn't get a good grip, so I was able to throw him off and into the bed. Unfortunately, by the time I'd rolled back to my feet, Rasul had closed and was throwing a wicked right cross. There was no time to dodge, so I did what I could to lessen the impact and turned with it, coming back with a jab to the solar plexus. I'd barely connected when my legs went out from under me and I crashed into the dresser.
Since he was still on his knees and had succeeded in bringing me back to his level, Jake took the opportunity of having me within range to slam his fists into both of my kidneys in rapid succession. I slipped off the dresser and barely had time to wonder where Mickey'd gone when the lamp crashed against my skull. I groaned and began the process of pushing myself up off the floor, which the boys were courteous enough to allow. Jake and Rasul had assembled themselves across the room, just in front of the door, but Mickey was nowhere to be seen. Probably holed up in the bathroom, looking for more things to drop on my head. I couldn't be bothered worrying about it.
Grinning manically through the blood, I took a few steps forward, clearing the bed, and settled into a defensive crouch. My two visible opponents threw themselves at me simultaneously, and I set about me as best I could. I was taking more hits than I was dishing out, but the ones I did land were solid, and I thought I was wearing Jake down. I was winding up for the shot that I hoped would knock him out when a great weight dropped onto my back and Mickey's arms went around my throat, squeezing. I tried to dislodge him, twisting and slamming backward into walls, but the little roach wouldn't let up.
It didn't take long for the black spots to start darting around my vision, so I gave up trying to throw Mickey and concentrated on doing whatever damage to the other two I could before I passed out. In the end, Jake looked shaky, but Rasul was smiling despite the blood running down his face, so I punched him in the knee right before I faceplanted into the carpet.
I came to not long after, as they were loading me into the car. To their credit, I was restrained very thoroughly and couldn't do much beyond turning my head and wiggling my fingers. Mickey saw my eyes flicker open and ducked back out, leaving Jake to handle me.
"He's awake, man."
"Ah, good. I have something to say before we get underway." Rasul came around to the side of the sedan that Mickey had vacated, sliding onto the seat next to me. "That was a very dirty trick you pulled, my friend. I will not be walking well for several days, at least." They'd duct-taped my mouth, so all I could do was glare at him.
"I can see you think I deserved it. You may be right." He was way too relaxed, but at least I had the small comfort that I'd broken his perfect arch of a nose. Someone had set it, probably Rasul himself, but it was still hugely swollen. He waved a hand, dismissing it. "It does not matter. I will endure, but you will not live through the night, so I have the better lot overall." He grinned affably, then got up and went around to the driver's seat. Mickey and Jake settled to either side of me as he started up the car, and then we were on our way. I'd been on several of these drives in the past, so I shut my eyes and settled back for a long ride.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
Andre had always creeped me out, just a little bit. Beyond the gradual lightening of his white-blonde hair, he never seemed to age, and any range of facial expressions he exhibited on television were faked for the sake maintaining his voting base. Even in a full, seething rage like he was now, prowling around where I'd been strung up in the middle of an old bunker, his face didn't move. It was all in the eyes, and those eyes wanted me to burn.
Someone had been kind enough to remove the duct tape, and with my doom all but assured I wasn't feeling much need to be tactful, so I took the gap in conversation as tacit permission to ask the question that had been puzzling me for more than a week now.
"So. Andre. I've been wondering: what was it about your wife's lingerie that made you take a swing at her?" His only response was to haul off and hit me; if I could have doubled over, I would have. As it was, the entire situation was suddenly hilarious and I couldn't stop laughing. He hit me again two or three times, but it barely gave me pause. My eyes were streaming, and I was trying to calm myself enough to ask another question.
"Not that I mind," I dissolved into giggles, "but are you planning to hit me somewhere other than my gut? 'Cause if you want to go for my face, you're going to need a box." I was like a hyena, and Andre, glaring up at me, clearly thought that if I was laughing I wasn't in enough pain. He frowned and stepped over to a table I hadn't seen to pick up a bat. I could think of several things he might be planning to do with it, none of them pleasant, but the hysteria was in full force and I couldn't stop myself.
"Seriously, though. You're a good foot shorter than me when I'm standing. Hanging like this, I'm not even sure you can reach my face." It was about then that he swung the bat into my kneecap, and I couldn't hold back the scream as I felt it shatter. He waited until I stopped, settling into great gasping breaths, and grinned.
"That's better. If you start that again, I will break your jaw."
I peered down at him, genuinely curious why he wouldn't, but for the first time in a while, sense won out and I kept silent.
"How long were you fucking my wife?"
"Since February, but we missed all of June because you're a big, scary monster."
"Six months."
"Or thereabouts."
"Then I shall break six of your ribs." He swung the bat at my side, hitting my ribcage with distinct crunch. "Or thereabouts." He repeated the action on the other side, to similar effect.
I hung there for several minutes, taking shallow breaths to avoid puncturing a lung, assuming I hadn't already. He stood there for a minute, taking in my pain, then went back to the table to pick his next instrument.
He came back with a knife. It was long and nasty-looking, and he used it to cut off my clothes. I was surprised I still had them, but this did give him the opportunity to be very ungentle with the removal process. By the time he was done, I was bleeding slowly from half a dozen wounds and small puddles were forming under my feet where the runnels were dripping off my toes.
"I'm sure you've figured out by now that I killed her. It is, I have no doubt, why you decided to come back here.
"Did you know she was on some rather heavy anxiety medications? Yes, my dear Sookie had quite the nervous constitution, so she had a prescription for Valium to deal with the panic attacks. It was ridiculously easy to slip some into her morning coffee and then talk her into going for a swim. I barely had to hold her down, she was so out of it. From there, it was only a matter of staging." He paused, fidgeting with the knife, and then raised his eyebrows dramatically, as though he'd only just remembered something.
"She was pregnant, you know. I can only assume it was your spawn, since I hadn't fucked her in months. I found the test in a drawer when I was looking for the Valium." He looked up at me and grinned. "You didn't know? That must be a knife to the gut." He punctuated his statement with a literal demonstration, and I cried out. Some of it was the pain, yes, but mostly it was that additional heartache of knowing that not only had I lost Sookie, I'd also lost our unborn child.
He liked that knife. He used it to great effect over the next several hours, mostly in silence. Occasionally he would ask me about my time with her, and I would tell him. I wasn't ashamed, and lying wouldn't hurt him any more. Every once in a while he'd go out with an empty bucket and come back with a bucket full of salt water; I knew it was salt water because he would throw it against the wounds, and I would scream, and he'd grin like a kid at Christmas.
Around dawn, he passed out of my line of vision, and then I fell. I collapsed, of course, because my arms were numb and he'd long since smashed my other kneecap; I didn't bother trying to get up. He came to crouch next to me, lying flat on the concrete floor in a puddle of my own blood.
"Do you know what I'm going to do with you, once I've killed you? I'm going to truss you up in a plastic sheet and throw you in Standley Lake, behind your friend's bar. I won't bother to put weights on, so you'll come to the surface in no time, and since I'm going to shoot you with a gun that he owns, it's going to look awfully suspicious."
I wanted to lash out at him, make some last valiant stand, but I still couldn't move my arms and my legs were next to useless. He smirked and stood up, yanking me to a sitting position by the hair. My scalp screamed in complement to the white-hot pain radiating from my shattered knees, and for some reason my nerves still had enough juice in them to tear up my eyes. I blinked and found myself staring down the barrel of a 9mm.
I saw his finger move, heard the click of the trigger, felt the flash of heat as the powder ignited, and then...nothing.
~~~ИΞEN~~~
David wasn't sure what he'd expected when he'd sent that Christmas card, but this sure as hell wasn't it. This woman-Pam-had shown up at his office at the National Weather Service claiming to be sent by Eric. That was weird enough, since Eric wasn't one to delegate, but it didn't help matters that Pam was not the sort of person he'd expect his brother to associate with. She looked respectable, impeccably clad head to toe in expensively-branded suburbanite chic, not like someone who hung out in dingy bars. No doubt she and Jo would get along famously, but that didn't explain what she was doing here.
He ushered her into one of the conference rooms and shut the door, settling himself across the table from where she'd sat.
"Your brother is dead.
"What?" He suddenly wished he's taken Jo up on her offer to sit in.
"Shot in the head. They pulled his corpse out of a lake yesterday, which is why I'm here."
"Maybe you should start at the beginning?"
She sniffed. "Yes, I suppose. I met Eric as he was sneaking back to his car following a night of sin with a Congressman's wife. I warned him that he should get out of town before the Congressman had him killed, but he didn't care about the risks. A week and a half later, his lover was found drowned in her pool, apparently accidentally. A few days after that, I received a package in the post containing instructions and this." She pulled a smallish box out of her purse and slid it across the table. "The instructions stated that I should wait until his body was found or until Sookie had been dead a month, whichever came first, then deliver that box in person. My understanding is that it contains his dying declaration."
There was a folded piece of paper taped to the top of the box, a note from a dead man. He removed it with care and unfolded it; the writing was the same oddly-elegant style he remembered, the signature as it had always been.
David-
I'm dead. It was unavoidable, but hopefully the video will be enough to destroy the man who did it. Bastard deserves it for what he did to Sookie.
You mentioned at Christmas that you hadn't been able to track Alex down. I made some inquiries in June, and it looks like he's in jail for stabbing Mor and Appius, the little psychopath. I couldn't find any death records, so presumably they're still alive somewhere.
I'm sorry I'll never meet your wife and kid, and I'm sorry that you'll never meet my Sookie. She made me want to be better, and if we'd had more time, maybe someday I would have been fit company for your family.
-E.
While he'd been reading, Pam had gotten out an emory board and was busy inspecting her nails. She put it down when she noticed he'd finished and leaned forward.
"So, David, what do we do now?"
"We watch the video, and then we do what we can to get him vengeance." His face had hardened, his eyes flashing with barely-contained rage. He and Eric had never been close, but they'd always stood up for each other and he wasn't going to stop just because the idiot had gotten himself killed.
Her bored expression melted into one of almost-psychotic glee. "Oh, good. Andre is a shit neighbor."