Few almost two decades the famous author Emily Starr has kept her past hidden. But after writing her memoirs of her childhood she decided to come clean.
A short story based from the song Hands Clean from Alan's Morissette that I've had in my head for a while know.
"Are you sure you wish to do this?" Emily hears Teddy ask her as she looks in the mirror.
"It's time to tell my story and truth," Emily finds herself saying looking back through the mirror at her long-time partner in crime. She smooths the skirt of the dress she chooses, she needed to do this for herself.
"You are brave and strong." He reminds her.
No names, but if you knew her story anyone could figure it out.
Emily smiles once more shakily at him, kissing his cheek as she grasps his hand.
"I don't deserve you."
"No. you deserve me more than me, but somehow you choose me anyway." Teddy shakes his head.
They leave the small room in the back of the book store. She didn't know how many people would be here today or if any. But she could hear the chatter, and then the calm breath before they cheered as they saw her. She had been gone so long she didn't think anyone would remember her enough to come to a reading.
She kisses Teddy's cheek as he tells her good luck
Teddy leaves to his place off to the side in the crowd of fans.
"Emily Byrd Starr, Welcome!" The host tells her.
"Thank you," She says nodding her head. "For having me here today, and thank you all coming today, I never imagined I would have such a crowd fifteen years of a career down the road." Emily jokes as she reaches the podium they had set up.
"When I wrote this book I never thought I would publish it. Who writes a memoir at 35 years old?"
The crowd laughs and she smiles.
"I grew up knowing people knew my family, my name, the daughter of a Canadian small screen star who tragically dies leaving her daughter and husband behind. My father was a notable writer in the Maritimes before his battle with cancer took him." Emily begins closing her eyes.
"An orphan is taken in by my aunts when I was 10 years old, who I thank every day for being part of my life."
There is a murmur among the crowd.
"There is one section of this book that I wish to read to you. This chapter is close to my heart and I want you to hear it from my own lips before I send it out to the world."
She tells the crowd before opening her book and taking a deep breath. She finds Teddy's gaze and closes her eyes letting his love wash over her.
When I was sixteen I thought I was invincible, when I was sixteen I had an affair with an older man. I thought I was such an adult in his office discussing books and contracts like I knew what I was doing. At first, it was innocent, I was fifteen and I didn't know better because I was headstrong and stubborn. But then it was dinners without my guardians present, a 16th birthday dinner just the two of us in a fancy restaurant. I still remember the comment about being his daughter and how he laughed it off. No-no Starr isn't my daughter, Starr is going to be my star writing author!
Tastes of wine from his glass, I was his prodigy, his minion who would go places. I fed on his words, I let my hunger for the world be corrupted by him. I was 16 when I found myself in his hotel room. I should have walked away, but his words of trickery made me brave.
-'Don't tell your aunts, do not let the others know. They will never understand Starr' is what he would whisper in my ear afterwards.
Dressing me up in slinky gowns, being at parties as he introduced me as his little Starr success. His hand always on my back, my fake little cocktail in my hand. Never real, he only allowed small sips when it came to real alcohol. He never allowed me to be intoxicated not before I was eighteen at least.
"I knew her father in college when I came
Across her contest submission, I knew I had to mentor her'"
'Her father the late Douglas Starr,'
"her mother was quite a beauty,"
Afterwards, it was always the same. His apartment, where his lips would land everywhere but my lips. Rarely ever my lips since the first time he kissed me, chuckling at my innocence after that first time.
My neck, wrist, ear, ankle, thigh, breasts, knees and hips were all fair game to his lips and tongue.
Only when I begged, only when I thought I had him backed into a corner did her kiss me. But the reality was I was the one in the corner
I hung onto words that fell from His lips.
Afraid to lose everything I gained my book, my reputation. All the while he was playing me Like a puppet,
A marionette.
A jealous master who held all the strings with promises that only came true when I pleased him.
Sixteen to nineteen I lived for his word.
Ruining friendships, relationships,' even books if he deemed them unsuitable.
I lived for him, and under his thumb, at his will until Teddy came back into my life.
When I was too skinny, sleep-deprived, afraid and unsure of what my life was. I wrote hours of the day, I had no friends. Impossible deadlines only made my sleep turn into stress-induced nightmares. So I never slept.
I had booked a retreat after an accident that involves a pair of scissors and stairs.
The rumours of suicide attempts and inappropriate relationships surfaced and I hide away only to find my own beacon of happiness. Childhood friends who I took for granted, who then with only one look took, welcomed me with open arms.
They showed me the realities of my life, they showed me friendship and unconditional love. They helped me get on my feet once more and showed me a simple life that I have never had before.
I disappeared for over a decade, I lived a normal life. I got married and had children. Then I began writing this book which shook the foundations that I so firmly made for myself.
Sometimes you don't realize how much you hold onto until you write it down. Seeing words on a page, knowing you are releasing your darkest moments to the world is a terrifying choice to make.
But in the words of Alanis Morrisette
We'll fast forward to a few years later
And no one knows except the both of us
And I have honoured your request for silence
And you've washed your hands clean of this.
Emily flicks on the evening news partly afraid, but also curious.
"Don't torture yourself with it," Teddy says gently from behind her.
"I essentially told the world that Dean Priest was a predator that took advantage of me from a young age. I may have not said his name, but they will figure it out."
"He's close to sixty now though isn't he?" Teddy asks sitting down beside his wife. Still holding the basket of children's clothing he just grabbed from the dryer.
"The Canadian Author Emily Starr Kent sent shockwaves down in a reading event at a bookstore in Toronto yesterday evening. Recounting in person an affair she had with an older man when she was only sixteen. Fans who recorded the reading are now speculating on just who this man was and they can only come up with one possibly man. The mega Agent Dean Priest who was known for finding raw talent in the '80s and '90s. Mr. Priest has so far made no comment beyond this Tweet, 'Words written can be twisted. As a friend of Ms. Starrs' father, I only saw her as a daughter and nothing more.'
We have reached out to Ms. Starr for a comment and have been told that she will make no comments about the situation. She only hopes the young women in a similar situation might hear her story and realize there is a way out and it is not shameful to ask for help.
Still, the air is buzzing, as other publishers and authors are coming out with their own stories, or in support of Ms. Starr for telling her truth.
"Mommy?" A little voice calls out from the hallway.
"I will get her," Teddy tells her getting up. "What is it Persephone?" He says sweetly picking up the night gowned bundled. At five and a half, she was still very his baby.
"Astraea stole Lincoln from me," she says.
"Let's go find him then shall we?" Teddy says as the dark-haired child tucks her head into his shoulder. They go across the hall, where the light is still on. "Astraea," he knocks on the door.
"What is it Dad" the older dark-haired child who inherited her mother's purple grey eyes.
"Where did you put Lincoln?" Teddy asks his pre-teen. To think they had only been twenty-four when she had been born.
"I didn't touch him," She says shrugging.
"Astraea," he warns her.
"I didn't!" She exclaimed at the unfairness of the accusation.
"Then where is he!" Persephone cried.
"I don't know where you left him," Astraea stomped her foot and Teddy sighed.
"You had him this morning," Emily says coming up to them with all the complaints. "Where did you leave him Persephone?" She asks as the telephone rings and Teddy and Emily look at each other.
"Mrs. Kent? There is a gentleman who wishes to come up?" The doorman asks her and Emily's brow furrows wondering who would be wanting to visit so late in the evening. "Mrs. Kent?"
"Send him up," She finds herself saying hanging up.
She waits a few moments before she hears footsteps, they sound all too similar.
"Teddy?" She calls out to her husband who pads across the tile floor with his bare feet, stopping at the there is a sharp knock on the door.
"Is that?" He breathes.
Emily could only nod her head, another sharp knock on the door.
Teddy makes the move to open it, not liking how his wife still felt afraid of seeing this person.
"Dean Priest," Teddy says, cooly.
"Theodore Kent," Dean replies just as cooly. "I would like to speak to your wife."
"She has nothing to say to you," Teddy replies. "I suggest you leave."
"Ever her little minion aren't you?" Dean says sneering. "Believing everything she has told you?"
"She was sixteen you disgusting old man," Teddy reminds him. "Leave before I call the police."
"Teddy, I can handle it," Emily says quietly. "Just go watch the children?"
Teddy looks back to Emily before slowly nodding his head. "If you need me just say so," He says stepping aside and letting his wife come into view.
"Hello Dean," Emily says taking a deep breath.
