Chapter 11

The light streaming in from the blinds was a little bit harsher than Kim would have liked this morning. She noted definite signs of an alcohol induced hangover but her muscles ached too, probably from all the dancing she surmised but there was another ache bothering her as well, one that brought a smile to her face despite it.

She allowed her mind to wonder back to the night before when she allowed herself to enjoy the many facets of her host. The thrill of being able to openly stroke Kerry's back, arms and assorted other body parts excited her. She began to imagine what a life with Kerry could be like now that there were no obstacles stopping her from loving her the way she always wanted to. She began feel her resistance to this little exercise melting away.

Kim finally decided to pulled herself out of bed and made her way downstairs looking for relief for her assorted ailments.

'Bingo!' She thought noticing someone had left a large pitcher of ice water and a bottle of Advil next to an empty glass.

As she filled the glass and popped the pills she saw Kerry through the French doors that led into the den. She holding a particularly difficult yoga pose. Kim had only recently discovered yoga and had thought she was a pretty good practitioner of it but after watching Kerry for a few minutes she quickly came to the conclusion that Kerry knew what she was doing, and did it well.

After watching her stretch, reach, bend and twist herself with quite an impressive range of flexibility she felt that earlier ache throbbing again.

It occurred to her that there was nothing stopping her from joining Kerry as she worked her muscles. Kerry had made it known to Kim that she still harbored an intense attraction for her, and after last night's mutual admiration of each other, she suspected her attentions would not be turned away. After finishing her water she quietly entered the den and approached Kerry, who had her arms high above her head in a salutation pose, Kim slowly wrapped her arm around her torso, eliciting a surprised hiss from the red head

"Don't stop what you're doing Ker." Kim whispered in her ear "I'm not here to bother you" Kerry kept her eye shut but a little smile came to replace the once serious look on her face. Kerry tilted her head a bit allowing a little more access to her neck if Kim felt so inclined to indulge much to the delight of Kim, she gently licked and nipped her way down her neck to Kerry's collar bone. Kerry let out a small moan, Kim tightened her grip around Kerry's waist with one hand while the other meandered its way up her side stopping right at the side of her left breast. Kim extended her thumb and brushed a hardening nipple. By now Kerry had dropped her arms and with a skilled elegance, managed to remove the sports bra she was wearing as a shirt completely off.

Kim immediately seized the opportunity to take Kerry's other breast with her mouth. She teased it with her tongue before finally sucking in the rubbery nipple. Kerry had moved her hands to the back of Kim's head to hold her in place.

"Kerry! Where are you? I need you to open the door for me!" a voice that was neither Kim or Kerry, shouted

Kim's eyes flew open, wide with surprise, and she release the nipple she was just thoroughly enjoying with a pop.

"Who the fuck is that?" Kim asked, clearly unhappy about being interrupted yet again.

"That would be Celeste" Kerry answered with a silly grin on her face.

"And Celeste is? Kim asked

"My agent" Kerry answered "I would have mentioned she was stopping by, but you really didn't give me much of a chance now did you?" Kerry said raising an eyebrow.

"KERRY! Jesus Christ, come open the door, my hands a full!" Celeste screamed again.

"Wow, she sounds lovely Ker." Kim said sarcastically

"She is, usually, you'll like her. So go clean up and meet us down here after so I can introduce you to her."

Kim grabbed the sports bra Kerry had tossed behind her and handed it back to her.

"Fine, but put this back on, I call dibs on those!" she said wagging her finger aggressively while pointing at Kerry's chest.

"Done, now go clean up" Kerry rushed to put herself back together as she made her way to the door "Calm down Celeste! I'm coming!" she screamed back.

"No you're not!" said Kim as she ran upstairs, "but that's Celeste fault, not mine" Kim said under her breath.

As Kim made her way downstairs she could hear the two woman arguing about something.

"Please, Kerry just choose one so we can get it to the printer! They have been waiting two weeks for these proofs!"

"I told you Celeste, I could not care less, just choose one!" Kim heard Kerry say

Kim made her way into the kitchen where she found them sitting at the kitchen island with a medium size box on it.

Her sudden appearance surprised Celeste making her jump suddenly and quickly closing the box. "Well, who is this ray of Sunshine Doctor Weaver?" Celeste gave Kim a thorough once over.

"This, Celeste, is Dr. Kim Legaspi and it's all right, you don't have to hide them from her" Kerry got up and moved to another stool to make room for Kim

"She knows?" Celeste asked alarmed

"Knows what?" Kim asked suspiciously

"Not yet, but she might as well..." Kerry trailed off, not wanting to get too far ahead of herself in regards to her possible future with Kim.

"Fine, I think it's ridiculous that you try to keep it a secret anyway!" Celeste relented.

She open the box and pulled out three hard covered books with three different covers.

Kim leaned over to them and picked up the first of the three laid out she noticed the title first 'The Poison Pill' because it was emblazoned in large text. Under it was a picture of a white pill with a trickle of blood pouring out from it and under that at the bottom of the book was the name P.T. CARMICHEAL – Author of the New York Times Best Seller 'A Polite Poison'

The other two books had the same title and author line but the art work was different, one had an open prescription bottle laying on it's side with white pills spilling out of it with one of the red pill mixed among them and the third cover went a completely different direction with a sinister looking shadow in the shape of woman cast on a brick wall.

She read the title out loud "The Poison Pill. Oh, hey I've heard of these books, Christy loves them" She put the first down and picked up the other, flipping it around to look at the Authors bio, "I tried to read the first one but it just wasn't my thing, a little too..." She was trying to find the right word, "I don't know, smutty? I mean I like the mystery part but all the romance stuff, just wasn't my thing I guess." She flopped it back on the island.

Celeste let out a hearty laugh, "Ha! You hear that Kerry? It's 'not her thing!'" she said the last part using finger quotes.

Kerry smiled and tilted her head a bit, "To be perfectly honest with you Celeste, they're not my thing either. I can't believe I wrote them"

Kim's head shot up from the book she was holding in her hand "You're P.T. Carmichael?"

"Yep! One in the same" Kerry said as if it weren't any big deal that Kim was just finding out her Ex was a bestselling author

"Huh" Kim just stared at her as she took in this new Kerry tidbit "That is an amazing accomplishment, why all the secrecy?" she asked

"Exactly!" chimed in her Agent, "Kim, I have be fighting Kerry on this for 6 years now. She if dead set on keeping her identity a secret."

"Because." Kerry simply answered Kim's question

"Because why?" Kim pushed

Before Kerry could answer, Celeste phone rang, the agent looked at the incoming call and looked back at Kerry "It's them, time to pull the trigger, what's it going to be? She looked over to the three books on the counter, lifting each one up individually, "Cover A? Cover B or Cover C?

Kerry raised her hands in an 'I don't care' gesture, "I don't know" she looked over at Kim, "you pick it"

"Me?" Kim asked shocked

Celeste couldn't wait any longer and answered the phone, "Hold on Morgan!" then looked at Kim, "Yes, you. PICK ONE NOW!

"Uh, ok, um" Kim stammered, then grabbed the one with the single white pill on it and tossed it to Celeste. "This one"

"Good choice" Celeste agreed and went back to the phone "Still there Morgan?" She looked over at the girls and mouthed she was going to take the call outside then started talking as she left the room "Cover A, yep that's the one..."

Now that they were alone, Kim sat back down on the stool and looked back over at Kerry "I believe you were telling me why no one knows you wrote these books"

Kerry shifted nervously in her seat. She crossed and uncrossed her arms a couple times until finally deciding to just clasp her hands tightly in front of her "Because...how do I explain this? These stories, they were just a lark. Something to do, to get me out of my own head."

"Out of your head? What do you mean?" Kim encouraged

Kerry looked down at the granite as if it were the most interesting thing she had ever seen. "Kim I don't think you understand just how hard our break up was on me. I kind of broke." She looked up making eye contact with Kim who could see that Kerry's eyes were welling up with unshed tears.

"I think you would probably classify it as a nervous breakdown. I took several weeks off from work, cut off all contact to everyone. Let them believe I left the country when really I just barricaded myself off in my basement and cried for days on end, until I couldn't anymore.

I just kept recounting the numerous terrible events that came from my betrayal of you over the Shannon debacle. Starting with your suspension, followed by your refusal to talk to me, then I meet your new girlfriend while trying to deliver a letter where I poured my heart out to you only to have you dismiss it as a sentiment filled piece of drivel oh, and then throw in my coming out party to Romano in a men room...It was just too much. I couldn't stop replaying ever single moment of it in my head, the voices of self-loathing were overwhelming. I just wanted to silence it all.

"Oh God Kerry" Kim didn't know what else to say

Kerry went on "I never would have harmed myself, I have too much respect for life to be so careless with it, I just wanted to change the channel, give me something else to watch in my mind. I wanted to create an entirely different world, one where I didn't exist. So I started to make up a story, One that I could control. Once I started I couldn't stop, it was as if I was someone reading the pages instead of writing them. The story just flowed out of me, almost like an outer body experience. These Characters popped up out of thin air. Their lives became real to me. It was so cathartic to give these people problems that I could solve a few pages later. I started to feel like myself again. Like I was fixing things, even if I was really just making it all up."

Kim just kept staring at Kerry hurting so much for the pain she had caused her. "What made you decide to publish them?"

Kerry let out a humorless laugh "I never had any intention of doing anything with it, I practically forgot about it, but then Courtney found them on my computer one day and tried to convince me to show them to a publisher, of course I refused but she could be a bit bossy and did it anyway under a pseudonym.

"P.T. Carmichael?" she asked

"Uh huh, P.T. because I always said my life was a Circus where I was the ring leader and Carmichael after her dog."

Kim quirked an eyebrow, silently asking the question Kerry understood "Don't ask me, she was an odd one."

"Ok, that explains the first novel, but the other two?" Kim asked

"Oh, well the second book came after my miscarriage and then Sandy was killed and the whole custody battle" It was just time for me to go to my not so happy place and purge all that shit out again."

"Miscarriage?" But before Kim could ask more about that Hurricane Celeste whirled back in.

"Ok girls! Go change into something nice we are going out to lunch to celebrate!"

Kerry kept her eyes on Kim but addressed Celeste "What are we celebrating?"

Celeste beamed at Kerry wearing a smile that enveloped her entire face.

"The studio accepted our counter offer, you just sold your book to Hollywood baby!"

It turned out Kerry was right, Celeste proved to be a very lovely woman. Sure she was loud and opinionated but she was also funny, smart and extremely protective of Kerry. She seemed to fill that void created by the mothers that had left her, one by choice and one who was taken. Celeste was most certainly the surrogate mother that Kerry craved.

Celeste picked up the story where Kerry had left off explaining how they had and how she had guided Kerry through the publishing world and how to navigate it while at the same time not revealing her true identity. Celeste didn't really mind that Kerry insisted on anonymity, because she felt that the added mystery helped the brand more and that helped line her pockets more. Win/Win was how she liked to describe it.

That led to quite a few "sugar mama" jokes during the lunch. Once Kim learned the price Celeste and her team help negotiate for the film rights of Kerry's book, that didn't even include possible sequels.

Instead of being mad about the new nick name given to her by her agent, Kerry instead, decided to embrace it and after lunch she insisted she and Kim go on a little shopping spree. They returned to Kerry's home several hours later with tons of shopping bags filled with new outfits for them as well as Flora and some new Nikes and video games for Henry.

As they started to prepare dinner for everyone Kerry's phone rang, looking at the caller id she saw it was her News Director.

"Hi Dave, what's up?" Kim could hear the one sided phone call as she went about setting the table

"oh no! Henry, turn the TV to channel 8 please" she asked Henry with an urgent tone

The TV screen had a helicopter shot of a huge fire with a red banner that read Breaking News

"Yeah, I'm watching. You need me to come in?" she asked, after a pause she continues. "Ok, give me an hour I need to change and I will be right in"

Kerry hung up and looked over at the others "There was an explosion at the port, one of the freighters, they don't have all the details yet, but a haz mat team has been called. They are concerned that it contained some hazardous chemicals that may be toxic. They want me on-set to talk about possible symptoms due to exposure and what to do if they think they've been exposed. I don't know when I'll be home tonight."

Looking over to Kim, "Do you want me to call Flora to come stay with Henry?"

Kim looked surprised for a minute but then snapped out of it, looking over at Henry then back at Kerry, "No, I got this. We'll be fine... go on, really, we will just have some dinner and watch you on TV" she ended with a smile.

"Ok. Thanks Kim" Kerry left to get ready but doubled back and reached up on her tippy toes to reach Kim's Cheek and gave her a quick peck. "Really, thank you." She said sincerely.