Wow, overwhelmed with the amount of reviews I received for the last chapter. Thank you guys! The response was indeed mixed, maybe a little more negative than positive. I have to disagree with those complaining that the fic is now cliché, but I get that you guys don't know what's coming, so it would seem that way to you. Also, I'm not concerned with what other fics are doing, or how many other stories are cultivated around similar circumstances as this story. No other story will ever deliver the ideas that I have for this fic like I will, because I'm a completely separate entity to those other authors, which is what I think really maintains the uniqueness of any story anyway. I will just say that if you're no longer getting what you want from the story, then stop reading. It's my story, and my vision, and I'm going to tell it the way that speaks the loudest to me, otherwise there's not all that much point.
Whew. I had to get firm there. Some of you guys be making me act like Miss Brittany lmfao!
To dom, I think I've conveyed that she's comfortable with the acts, and even enjoys the power that comes with it. She's controlling and mostly maintains the upper hand. As for being a paid dominatrix contradicting everything that a dom stands for (due to the idea that she doesn't really want to do it but is doing it simply for the money, which would in fact render her powerless) you will just have to read on ; ) PS: bear in mind that she declined Santana's money at the beginning. That's partly because she enjoys what she does. She would've charged Santana to the sky and back, regardless of the lesson that she was trying to teach her, if she didn't.
To era, it's interesting that you would pose that idea ; ) For it to work, there would have to be a level of trust maintained first though. That would make it much more interesting ; )
To the guest that said that it was OOC for Britt to have an accidental baby or a kid with someone she's not in love with, because of how careful and controlled dom!Britt is, you know very little about Brittany at this point. There's been almost no background on her thus far to explain how she came to be the way that she is, or how long she's been the way that she appears, and for good reason. I've done quite a bit of research, and it'll make sense when all is revealed I hope. It makes sense to me at least. You can suggest anything that pleases you, of course, but my own creativity has inspired and excited me enough to take me this far into the story, so I think I'm going to stick with it.
To anon, i did state in the summary that Britt learns a few things too, which would suggest that she's not entirely in control or complete. But again, britt enjoys her job.
To, GotztaGay, I'm having so much fun seeing her characterization materialise in my mind. I love it!
To PopMuzika, I loved your review from start to finish lol!
Disclaimer: I'm just going to go ahead and put a trigger warning here. I don't want to give anything away, but just know that a topic that some may find disturbing or triggering will occur in this chapter. However, if you are particularly sensitive to triggering subjects, and wish to know what specific topic I'm referring to without reading the chapter, then please go to the end of the chapter, where the specific trigger is listed.
Ok then, let's get into chapter 5 shall we?
I pushed open wide the kitchen window, welcoming in the rush of cold fresh air that I hoped would go some way in erasing the musty stench of the meal I'd just burned.
Padding away from the window and across my lounge, I perched myself on the seats that lined the breakfast bar, and proceeded to pour a generous amount of wine out into the glass waiting for me.
I quickly lifted the glass to the parting between my lips and threw back its contents with gusto.
Now I was ready.
Finally, I looked at Puck, and then reached over to slap the seat two away from mine.
Like a zombie, he shuffled towards the bar and sat down.
"Why?" I asked, knowing that I needn't add any more.
Puck eyed me, his dark hues laden with vague suspicion – most likely because he'd been expecting my fist to be halfway through his throat right about now, but it wasn't. Instead I was sat composed before him, awaiting an explanation.
To be honest, a large portion of my mind's focus was still lingering in last night with Brittany and the little blonde child that had stormed her with felt adoration the moment she'd gotten in the front door. So many questions were playing bumping cars in my head, that I literally lacked the energy to be all up in Puck's face. I mean, I now knew where Brittany lived; I could find out her real name, her past, her present. I'd already given Ben her address to look into, and I was so eager to get into all of that.
But first I had to deal with Puck's betrayal.
He was staring at me like a little boy pleading a reprieve, and it was nothing but infuriating.
"Talk!" I demanded, slinging my hand up before letting it limpen back to the surface of the bar top. "Say something!"
As the seconds flittered by in nothing but silence, I snatched the wine bottle's neck and tilted its lips over the rim of my empty glass, listening to the fizzy beige liquid glugging as it gained in volume.
I was probably going to need the whole bottle: I could just see it now. That was one way for me to try to feel close to my mother, right?
"Puck, start the fuck talking before I lose my shit," I hissed.
He bowed his head, showing me the bird's-eye view of his product-free mohawk, and fiddled with the shiny gold band situated just below the last knuckle on his right hand's middle finger. "My mom's sick, Santana." He looked up into my eyes and reaffirmed, "really sick. I took the money to pay medical bills."
I threw that second glassful down my throat, gulping down the liquid with an audible squelch, before I pointedly thunked the glass back down to the counter. "Not that I'm a cruel cold-hearted bitch or anything, but I sort of am - which leads me to ask why the fuck you didn't just clean more pools to pay for the bills! My father's furious, and he suspects that it was you."
Puck resumed the bowing of his head, but his fingertips had halted on that ring. He then mumbled something that not even the most perceptive of sound engineers would be able to decipher.
"What?" I asked, cocking my ear out as if listening for far away secrets.
"I want to show you something," he quietly said.
Usually, I would've made some quip about how I didn't want to see his shriveled up penis, but there was no place for that here.
I extended my neck up at him as he stood, watching whilst he tugged his shirt open from its ribs, the buttons clicking apart like the smattering of applause. He quickly shrugged the blue garment back off of his tan muscular arms, and I briefly followed it to the floor with my gaze, before refocusing on him.
As well as his jeans, he was now clad in a thin dark-brown baggy jumper with an ape-like insignia on it; the one where the neck was torn and fraying, the one with the two holes in the sleeves, the two holes that seventeen-year-old me would poke my fingers through and gnaw on as I watched adolescent TV.
My jumper.
I darted numerous looks of confusion towards my bedroom, wondering when and how my lazing jumper had been snagged right out from under my nose. "What the hell are you doing with my jumper?" I asked, creeped the fuck out at this point.
"It was mine first," Puck solemnly replied, staring at me through a squint, as though waiting for something to trigger off in my mind.
But the only thing that triggered was my growing capacity for feeling legitimately disturbed by Puck's worrying behavior.
"Nooo, I had that when I was like seventeen," I spoke slow and careful, like I was attempting to talk down a dog that I knew wanted to take a chunk from my arm. "We hadn't even met back then. So, what is this all about?"
"We might not have met, but I knew who you were. How'd you get the jumper?" he pressed me for an answer. "Do you even remember?"
"Puck, you're... you're really starting to creep me out," I told him, every hair at the back of my neck erecting as a cold shudder swept through the rest of my body.
"When I was seventeen, I… I broke into your parent's place."
I frowned. "...what?"
"I didn't get very far, before security spotted me, and whilst rushing to get out, this," he pinched desperately at the baggy arm of the jumper, "fell from around my waist. When we became friends and I started coming here a little more often, I saw you wearing it a lot. I knew you'd found it and kept it."
I shrieked out a perplexed, "what the fuck are you talking about?"
He gave a wane chuckle and sat back down again, almost defeated. "I'm… I'm your brother," he announced, low and heavy.
It was now my turn to chuckle, and not because I was finding this shit anything even close to funny, but because: "Puck, you're fucking insane!"
"I was angry," he added, like I'd said nothing at all, "because me and my mom were struggling, whilst Miguel gave you, and Rachel - who isn't even his kid - everything. I was going to torch the place that day, but security, they scared me away."
"Alright." I folded my arms cynically. "If this is all true, why didn't you say anything before?"
"Because I knew I'd get all of this, and I didn't have to explain why I stole money from Miguel before, did I?"
I studied his expression, studied his body language for kinks in his demeanor. Not one made itself apparent.
"B-But t-that night, in that club - you... you hit on me," I reminded him, desperately clinging to it as justification for why he was spouting complete and utter bullshit. We were the same age, born days apart, which would've meant that my father had also knocked some other bitch up around the time that I was conceived.
Puck briefly closed his eyes and sighed. "I-I wasn't actually gonna try to fuck you or anything that night."
"Ugh! God," I grimaced, disgusted by the very notion of it.
"I just wanted to try to get close, to get to know the sister that I'd read so much about," he admitted, shame written all over his face.
I ran my shaky palm down over my face, and let it stop at my mouth, a few trembling fingers lingering on my top lip as I contemplated the absolute foolery that was playing out. Where was Ashton Kutcher hiding?
"I swear I wasn't thinking about fucking you when I hit on you, Santana," he reiterated, willing me to believe him with pressing wide eyes.
"God! Do you have any idea how fucked up that is?" I shouted.
"You don't know what it was like!" Puck suddenly boomed, the little-boy-lost of three seconds ago gone.
My lips snapped shut, a mute gulp following.
"You think growing up without a father was easy?" he spat. "Knowing that I had a sister who knew nothing about me! Knowing that my dad was this wealthy asshole who didn't want anything to do with me because he didn't wanna upset you, Rachel, and your mom - it hurts!"
"I..."
"Do you know that I actually tried to get Miguel to spend time with me?" he said, shaking his head as if he thought that he was beyond pathetic. "I even tried to get him to go golfing with me, and I fucking hate golf! He refused everything I suggested, discarding me off as just some dirt-bag friend of his daughter's," he spat, so bitter that spittle fizzed at the corners of his mouth. "So when my mom told me how much her medical bills were, and that we wouldn't be able to pay them, I thought fuck it. He can pay." Puck's voice was wavering in and out of strength, like tears were playing push-and-tug with his vocal chords. His bottom lip was quaking, along with his top, and I watched him repeatedly fold them in on each other to conceal the intensity of his apparent anguish.
"Does he... does he know who you are?" I tentatively asked.
Puck took a moment to compose himself and blink away the glisten that was expanding on the surface of his eyes, eventually answering, "he doesn't know what I look like, but he knows I'm out there somewhere. But it doesn't fucking matter, Santana. My mom told him that she was pregnant, and that she was having me regardless of whether she had his support or not. That's when he cut us off. The man doesn't give a shit!"
Never mind Puck; I needed to take a moment to compose myself…
The result of it was: "is your surname the same as your mom's? If it is, then surely he has to know who you are."
Puck shook his head. "I took my step-father, Keith's, last name when I was five."
I'd seen it a million times - families discovering their father's side family, and now I was part of that club? I didn't know Puck's mom. For all I knew, she could've just said that my dad was Puck's father because he's got money. She could've been a delusional crackpot for all I knew about her, which was nothing at all. For that very reason I wanted a paternity test done, even if it meant that I had to appear on the Maury Povich show to get it.
I shrugged wearily, grumbling, "what the fuck am I supposed to do with all of this Puck?"
He shrugged also. "Just, now you know."
"I'm gonna get a paternity test done," I quietly muttered after a while.
Puck's eyes snapped up to mine, and his face twisted with hurt that made his forehead look like the moon's surface. "What, you think I'm fucking making this up? Dude, fuck you!"
I let out a short startled squeal and shielded my face as the glass on the counter suddenly flew out and exploded in fine crystal shards against the wall. I hadn't even seen Puck's hand bat it, but by the way that he stood up, snatched his shirt from the floor, and hurricaned out beyond my front door, I knew that that was exactly what had happened.
I had no idea what I was supposed to do with all that Puck had told me. I couldn't confide in Rachel, my mom, or dad, but that was nothing new. And how the hell was I supposed to retrieve my father's DNA for the paternity test without alerting him to the situation, besides sneaking up into his room to pick a couple of hairs from his comb? This wasn't a damn episode of CSI.
Fuck, what if Puck really was my brother?
The next morning I woke up feeling more spent than I had when I'd gone to sleep the night before. But two whole bottles of wine before bed will do that to you, I suppose.
My waking up ritual was always the same, unless I'd spent the night at some slut's place: check my cell phone, brush my teeth whilst showering, and get dressed in either regular clothes or clothes for lounging around in.
Despite the fuckery that had gone down with Puck yesterday, I was going to try to make sure that the morning followed normal custom.
Sometimes all a person has is routine.
With a stretch and a small yawn, I leaned over and reached out to the bedside cabinet to grab my phone. Flicking a thumb at the slider built into its side, the screen gradually came alive.
I had one message.
It had been sent at 6.45am, and was from Miss Brittany, simply reading: Tell me your address.
I lay there questioning the request for a good while; the bright glare from the sun seeping in through the curtains changed position many times.
But then I considered the fact that if I revealed my address to her and she actually showed up, she would be stepping into my home. She didn't know where the kitchen hand rolls or the knife and forks were kept. If she needed the toilet, she'd need me to tell her where it was. She'd be out of her element here. That had to increase my chances of maybe scoring the upper hand if I needed to, right? I also hadn't forgotten about the reward she'd spoken of should I start to behave myself more often – maybe it would be sexual. I could only hope.
Then there was the fact that I felt an intense need to feed the fascination that I had with her.
In the end I was quite content to press out what was perhaps an uncharacteristically compliant, 15 Howercrop Street, and send it off.
I spent the next few minutes feeling some guilt over the memory of telling Puck that he was always around, even when he wasn't wanted, before my phone hummed three times and snapped me out of my trance.
If the place is messy, you have fifteen minutes to clean up before I get there.
Shit! She was coming here.
Now.
Like a complete maniac, I flung my duvet to the side, and clambered into the bathroom to freshen up.
It was the fastest shower I'd ever taken. I'd even banged the side of my head against the wall tile in my haste to scrub under my armpit, and ended up muttering a profane, "fuck off!" to the four condensated walls.
"Just try to do what she says, and she'll fuck the dust off of your pussy... maybe," I repeated to myself, as I walked from room to room.
I wanted to have sex with her to the point that it was slightly embarrassing. I wanted to run my hands over skin that I imagined to be creamy and silk-soft. I wanted to smell her arousal, and taste it. I wanted to see her eyes roll back in her head. I wanted to see her lose all control as she shuddered beneath my fingers and tongue, a cacophony of wild groans pouring out of her.
I hungered for all of that.
Suddenly the doorbell gonged.
I ran a hand through my hair and made for the front door, unlocking and unlatching it without bothering to check the security monitor in my lounge to see who was outside.
I knew that it was her because it was fifteen minutes, to the second, since she'd sent me that last text message.
As soon as I pulled open the door, Miss Brittany clicked her shiny red heels straight in past me without a word.
She looked simply gorgeous. Her deep blue irises popped for the dark eyeliner and mascara decorating them, and her hair was loose and wavy with a distinct side parting. Khaki-coloured skinny jeans ran the length of her legs, and a white sleeveless blouse, which was buttoned up to her sternum, hung fashionably around her slender torso.
Don't even get me started on the lust-red lipstick coating those taught lips.
After locking and latching the door, I turned around, noting the black bag swaying from her pale fingers for the first time.
I pressed my back into the door, and nodded at the bag. "What's in there?" I asked.
"Get me a chair and you'll find out," she retorted, not missing a beat.
I nodded towards the couch. "There are seats over there."
"Get me a standalone, smart-ass."
Maybe the bag contained some of her work clothes.
Maybe she was going to slip into them and spank me, or something.
The notion ignited fast spreading excitement within me, and before I knew it, I was dragging the wooden chair which usually sat at my dining table out to the center of the living area.
All four legs of it clinked against the floor and rocked from side to side a little as I released the backrest.
In silence, Miss Brittany reached past me and pulled the chair back a tad, pushing it over to the right until it was to her liking. "Sit down," she instructed, her voice betraying the same thing as her face, which amounted to a whole lot of absolutely nothing.
I stared at her for quite some time, or at least it felt like it.
Stood tall behind the varnished wooden chair, she arched an expectant eyebrow.
"You have exquisite eyes," I let slip out a little airily, completely and utterly dwelling in the pristine nature of their majestic blueness.
As if to exhibit them she blinked, and then said, "you think flattery will get you somewhere with me?"
I smirked somewhat, shrugging one shoulder. "Maybe. Who doesn't like a bit of flattery?"
She racked her nails at the chair's dark wood. "Sit down."
"...Ok," I cautiously agreed, "but if you do anything to me from behind, just know that I've told all those close to me about you. You're the first person the cops'll be questioning," I said, only half joking. My heart was actually jack-hammering in my chest, and my palms seemed to be secreting enough moisture to water crops that went on for miles.
I sat down in the chair with a slow wariness.
Miss Brittany hummed a short chuckle, but offered no comment.
I'd never wanted to know what another was thinking so badly in my entire life.
I listened to her bag hit the floor behind me, and suddenly felt the fingertips of both her hands settle at the crest of my hairline, before she gently began combing them back through my silk black mane. She repeated this motion several times, seemingly working towards shoveling all of my hair back off of my shoulders, all whilst thick silence cocooned us.
It was actually a really sensual sensation, having her touch me like she was – her slow movements and her hush breathing the only things that could be heard.
I wanted to ask her, so badly, about the little girl I'd watched her arrive home to the other night. I wanted to ask her why she was here. I wanted to know why she thought that Jesus never truly existed. I wanted to ask, ask, ask, because each answer would give me parts of her to further analyze. But somehow, I felt that talking would pique her disapproval, rendering me silent in my own home.
In that moment I got it. I got why she had chosen to come here. She was showing me the extent of her power, that she could step foot into the place I owned and still run things.
"You have clean hair," she commented evenly, but I could feel that it was a quality she approved of.
Still facing forward, I let a smirk rise into the corner of my mouth.
As if now bored with the inspection, her fingers suddenly left my scalp, and I heard her shifting behind me.
Throwing a cautious frown back over my shoulder, I caught Miss Brittany crouching down over her bag. "Face forward," she said, though she didn't look at me at all.
Much reluctance coiled in my neck muscles, resulting in my gaze further lingering on her as she took what looked like a hairdresser's tool roll - which was made of a shiny grey mackintosh-type material - out of the rustling black bag. She unclipped it and rolled it out across the floor, revealing its numerous pockets; pockets which were housing various pairs of classic silver hairdresser-type scissors, and fine-tooth combs.
She was planning on cutting my hair?
Those complex blue eyes snapped up to mine. "Didn't I just tell you to turn around?"
"You're here to cut my hair?" I asked, incredulously.
Standing first, Miss Brittany pressed her flexed hand to the top of my head, and manually turned it so that I was once again facing forward. "I don't like the length that it's at. So you're going to go shorter," she told me. "And when I get bored of its colour, you're going to change that for me too," she added, with an easy certainty.
"I don't need or want a haircut," I let it be known, plagued by images of me sporting the same haircut as Bruce Lee, or something equally as dykey. My aesthetics were everything to me, second only to my wealth!
Her chuckle echoed around almost like a coven of witches; mocking in its very nature. "Sweetie, this isn't about what you want."
I threw power into twisting around in the chair, and glared up at Miss Brittany for a good few moments, later forcing, "how much are you planning to take off?" through gritted teeth. "This is - I don't even know if you can cut hair!" I complained.
She smirked down at me and, God dammit, I hated that sparkle behind her eyes, the one that I was growing too fond of.
"Now is as good a time as any to start working on deepening your non-existent capacity to trust then, isn't it? Now face forward," she instructed, forcefully twisting my head frontwards again, "and keep still."
Deepening my non-existent capacity to trust? Were my issues with trust really that transparent?
She was challenging me to completely surrender.
I didn't know if I could do it – or if I even wanted to.
When I heard the repeated chopping of sharp scissor blades, I knew that Miss Brittany had a pair in her hand. The noise grew closer and closer to my head as she combed back the strands that had returned to dangling past my collarbone.
"Do you trust me?" she asked, almost with the consideration of a doctor asking a child to close their eyes, before a needle disappeared into their vein.
But not quite. There was something challenging about it.
Like fuck did I trust her, but this was me attempting to behave, and I suspected that telling her no wasn't going to earn me anything close to a reward. So I breathed out a ragged lungful and nodded slightly. "Yeah."
"Don't lie to me again. You suck at it."
Without warning, she commenced to snipping at my ends with rapid chops.
I didn't want to move in case the turbulence of it caused those more than capable scissors to miss and take off a clump that they weren't supposed to, so I simply sunk my teeth down into my bottom lip, and grimaced like she was inflicting real physical pain. Clusters of my hair floated to the floor, into my lap, and kissed past my shoulders. It seemed like a lot of hair.
I couldn't believe that I was allowing her to do this to me.
Was I insane?
Her snipping soon began to slow, and the pattern of the clipping sounds became more careful - more precise - as she circled me to get to different parts of my head. That in itself soothed me a little, but ultimately I knew that I wasn't going to be able to relax until I'd considered my reflection in a mirror and okayed that I still looked like a female.
"Finished," she finally announced after what felt like an eternity stacked upon an eternity. "Stand up and look at me."
Blowing out a shaky puff of air, I dusted off my shirt, stood up, and turned around. There was a black mirror already poised mid-air in Miss Brittany's one hand, showing me my reflection. Whilst I squinted into the shiny silver surface, at first afraid to consider her handiwork, she reached out and preened certain strands to her liking, as though I was a mannequin and she was simply fluffing my wig before putting me in the shop window.
Once satisfied, she declared, "perfect," and then crouched down to pack away each tool.
I stood there, refusing to believe that she'd done such a professional job. The body of my hair remained, but it now just neatly tickled past my shoulders, whereas before it would hang to my nipples. I thought that it was a little short for my tastes – I liked to whip my hair around whilst throwing my weight around - but it still looked really good. I mean, I'd been expecting to see Bruce Lee's haircut sitting on my scalp. She'd even taken care of a couple pesky split ends near the left side, and even though I couldn't see my reflection anymore, I felt compelled to lift a hand and tousle my new hair in the way that we all do when we feel sexy.
All packed away, Miss Brittany scooped up her black bag and rose to full vertical capacity.
With only the wooden chair between us, we simply stood peering at each other, before she positioned the side of her foot to one of the chair's back legs, and pushed it off to the side. She reached out her free hand and sensuously let it slither around the back of my neck, its soft warmth making my eyes flurry between various states of open and closed.
Our faces were drawn so close that her breath hovered about my top lip, and the tips of our noses repeatedly kissed past one another. Hers was slightly cold, but the feel of it was nice.
Then she quietly dropped, "kiss me," between us.
My eyes were already closed when I leapt up hungrily for her lips, but they instantly sprung open again to Miss Brittany's filthy smirk, as the long and pale fingers that had quickly tangled in the hair at the base of my neck jerked my head backwards.
Something warm and wet and ridiculously soft then drew up the flesh of my arched caramel neck, and my eyes rolled back in my head like broken reels in a slot machine. "Holy f-f-fu -"
Miss Brittany's lips suddenly swept mine up into soft yet aggressive bliss, the last two letters of my intended profanity falling into her mouth and dissolving between our swirling tongues.
She would go on to trap my lips, one at a time, between hers, sucking on them and drawing them out away from my face, only to let them snap back to normal elasticity a few seconds later, and her tongue would roll so fucking sensually around mine. The hand that fisted the hair at the back of my head would flatten out and glide down my back to grab at my ass, only to glide up into my hair again, her fingernails scraping at my scalp.
Our kissing felt like a reward, like she was rewarding my compliance. I definitely preferred this to being punished. She was insanely skilled with her mouth.
When she broke away my eyes remained closed, but my lips drew forward, following after hers, following after the most satisfying kiss that I'd ever received.
The noise of the front door opening and closing is what eventually stirred me, and once I'd lifted my drooping eyelids, Miss Brittany and her black bag were gone…
When I stepped outside, I saw that the last hour's frenzied winds had swept through the city like an open refrigerator; everything slick with a thin blanket of frost, but alight and magnificent nevertheless.
The drastic change of whether meant that I would have to drive at a slower, more cautious, pace. But I was down with that. I didn't care how long it took me to arrive at Ben's place, as long as I got there. Plus the cold meant that I could wrap up to the point that nobody would recognize me.
He'd called me up say two hours ago to invite me around to his place, so that we could go over his findings on the address that I'd given him to look into. Miss Brittany's address. Apparently he had a real name for me, past occupations, and hospital records. "It's definitely interesting," he'd told me over the phone. "I've assembled the information like a jigsaw puzzle."
I was so excited that I was ready to have the man's kids.
The slow drive to Ben's place took me about twenty minutes all in all.
A short woman answered the cathedral-like front door with a warm smile. "Good afternoon Miss Lopez," she greeted me.
I ran my eyes down over her attire, which was your classic maid's uniform. "Afternoon," I replied, smiling back.
"I'll just lead you through," she said, allowing me inside before backing me to lock the door.
Whilst I waited I took my gaze all around. Sculptures of winged gargoyles posed menacingly at the bottom of the never-ending staircase, and thin carpet ran the floors instead of unimaginative marble or laminate. This was perhaps the second time that I'd ever been inside of Ben's place – or more appropriately, Ben's castle – since discovering his services three years ago. A lot had changed since my last visit.
The maid smiled as she brushed past, beckoning her hand for me to follow. "Just this way."
She led me through to a vast room, with a frescoed ceiling that might as well have been the sky, before receiving a nod of dismissal from Ben, who was lying down by the crackle of the open fireplace on his side, three neat piles of paper surrounding him.
He offered up a hand and gave me an inviting wave to come over.
As fast as my feet would follow instruction, I raced towards him, weaving between the luxurious sofa and coffee table.
Ben tapped the carpet beside him. "Here, sit. Make yourself comfortable." He assisted his suggestion by reaching behind and handing me a large cushion. "By the way, your hair looks nice."
"Thanks." I grabbed the cushion and stuffed it beneath my butt, removing my sunglasses and hanging them in the neck of my zip-up hoody once comfortable. "So what did you find out?" I eagerly shot at him.
"Umm, honey?" he suddenly called, elongating his neck out.
I followed his line of vision, and spotted his wife sat over in the corner, half of her pale face cast in the lamp's light. She looked up from her book.
"Yes?" she answered.
As though suddenly uncomfortable, Ben took his fingers up to the back of his neck and scratched the exposed flesh just above his crisp white collar. "I'm about to discuss business with my client. Do you think you could maybe...?"
Before he finished his sentence, she stood up and swiftly began crossing the room for the exit, as if his request was a familiar custom that she'd momentarily forgotten. She gave me a toothy smile as she breezed past. She looked scraped together as usual, her lips too red; the color smudged on her teeth. I'd briefly met her two times before and… well at least you could say that she was consistent with her poorly-put-together-appearance.
"Sorry about that," Ben apologized, running his fingers up and down his black tie absently as he silently read from one of the sheets of paper that was closest to him on the floor.
"It's cool," I quickly shrugged it off. "Back to Miss Brittany; what do you have for me?"
He looked up into my eyes, factually declaring, "her real name's Brittany Susan Pierce. Never married; she was born a Pierce. She's the sole homeowner of the address that you gave me."
"Pierce," I muttered to myself, trying it out on my tongue.
Brittany Pierce. It sat well with her, stern like I knew that she could be.
"However, she isn't the sole occupant of the house. One seven-year-old Molly Pierce also resides there."
"The little girl I told you about! – she must be Molly. What, is she like Brittany's little sister?" I asked. That now seemed like the logical conclusion to jump to. I mean, Molly had Brittany's surname. If she was Brittany's daughter, then why wouldn't she have her father's name?
Ben held up a halting finger. "I'll get to that, Santana, but first let me go over something else with you." He reached over and quickly thumbed through the middle stack of papers, stopping to pull out one sheet when he found what he was looking for. Lifting the piece of paper before his eyes, he said, "she obtained various qualifications in hair when she was nineteen – she's thirty now, by the way – and worked at Style&Stush for quite a few years. But then she went on to work as a drop-in hair stylist for Mrs. Fabray at the Fabray residence in 2005."
The Fabray's.
So that was how Quinn knew of Brittany. She'd worked on her mother's hair.
"Go on," I encouraged, the fire from the fireplace flickering in the periphery of my vision as I awed at Ben's findings.
He held up his finger again, and quickly reached for the third pile of papers. They were tagged with a small sticky note which read, 'Hospital records.' He drew back to his original position once he had what he wanted. "Now apart from the usual bumps and bruises that a lot of kids and teens suffer, she reported to Ashloft Accident and Emergency on May 5th 2005. According to this," he shook the sheet of paper, "she was experiencing some vaginal bleeding and was suffering various tears and lacerations to her vaginal walls – as well as some pretty horrific bruising. When asked what had happened, she explained to them that she had been raped." Out of courtesy, Ben stopped reading at that point and surveyed my expression, giving me time to take on the grim information.
I blinked profusely through a deep frown, and then passed my palm down over my face in the hopes that it would reset my emotions.
"Are you ok for me to continue?" asked Ben.
I gulped, still frowning. "Sure – wait, did she report it to the police?" I quickly asked.
"Not that I can find," he replied. He returned his eyes to the letters typed to the sheet of paper. "Three weeks following her visit to A&E, she visited her doctor and was tested for pregnancy. The results came back positive."
"So Molly is her daughter. She was a rape baby," I solemnly pondered aloud.
"The dates match up to support that, yes. But that's not to say that Molly wasn't conceived days before the rape occurred. But if there were two men involved, the first being the rapist and the second being a boyfriend of some sort, it would be hard to pinpoint who the father was without a paternity test. There's nobody's name on the birth certificate but Brittany's."
If Molly had indeed been conceived out of rape, why hadn't Brittany gotten an abortion, or reported the incident to the police? Maybe she didn't believe in abortions, but that's still lame. If that little blonde girl was here as a result of sexual assault, then that meant that Brittany had given birth to Molly knowing how she came about. If it was true, then Brittany had been looking her rape in the face for the past seven years.
Finally finished with his little presentation, Ben laid the papers to the floor.
"Why didn't she go to the police?" I racked my brains.
"Well… I have my own theory on that," Ben hesitantly offered.
"What is it? What's your theory?"
"Remember when you got me to look into the Fabray's so that you would be equipped for your dinner with Quinn?"
I nodded, still a little unsure. "…uh-huh."
"I uncovered that there was that rape case surrounding Mr. Fabray, remember?"
The implication pelted my small frame full-force, like a heavy boot coming down on the back of an ant. I felt my entire face fall slack, my body freezing up to the point that I didn't know whether or not I was still breathing.
"The dates, the time-frame for when she suffered the rape and started to work for the Fabray's – it all adds up," Ben added, watching under his eyelids for my reaction.
I began to go over the dinner that I'd suffered in Quinn's company with a fine-tooth comb. When I had probed her about what she knew about Brittany, she'd gotten awkward, quickly scurrying from the restaurant like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre was coming after her.
What did she know?
I had to find out!
If Ben's theory was true, then Quinn had a seven-year-old little sister.
"Ok, well err, thanks Ben. I think I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna go now. I'll send payment, along with your other payment, in the mail ok?"
He extended his hand out across and touched my arm, concerned. "Santana, are you sure you're ok?"
I didn't know the answer to that. I didn't know why I was feeling Brittany's trauma so deeply. It was insane.
Nevertheless I performed a nod, even if it was a little stilted.
"Ok then. And by the way, she's either got her cell phone turned off twenty-four-seven, or she's found a way to block the signal that it gives out, because I haven't been able to locate it for the last three days."
I nodded again, not really that concerned with tracking Brittany at this point.
I needed to go home and think.
I spent the drive home mulling all sorts of stuff over, like the first night that I met Brittany. The way that I approached her, like the only thing that she was good for was her body – I felt bad about it. I don't know; she'd probably been really insulted by that.
When I arrived home I headed straight for my bedroom and flicked on the television, letting it play out whilst I stripped off. I left my clothes piled on the floor, and slipped into some loose-fitted pajama bottoms and a loose T-shirt.
It was barely 8.30PM, but I was tired.
Once under the covers of my bed, I stared through the images flickering inside of the large plasma screen on the opposite wall.
What the hell was going on in the world? First Puck reveals that he's my long lost brother, and now the Brittany thing?
I didn't get her. There were no ifs ands or buts; she was raped, yet she was a dominatrix? She could have continued to work in the field of hair, but she had chosen to do what she was doing now. Why would she deliberately put herself in situations that held within them the same sort of energy that the trauma of her rape had most likely possessed? In a sexual setting, she tied people up, whipped them, humiliated them, and forced them to do things against their will. Surely that sort of stuff had to spark flashbacks, or something. But she seemed to enjoy her work. That much was undeniable. It would sparkle in her eyes and pull the corner of her mouth up in smirk.
Was that normal?
I was curious, so curious that I grabbed my cell phone from the spare pillow next to mine, and scrolled through my contacts until my thumb was hovering over Dr. Hal.
Dr. Hal was my mom's therapist. Rachel had tried to get me to go see him three months ago. She'd saved his number into my phone, and I hadn't deleted it because it hadn't been a priority. I was glad for that now.
Even if he was doing a shit job with my mom, perhaps he would be able to provide me with answers to my questions.
I touched the call icon and put my phone to my ear, letting it ring.
I was about to hang-up after maybe the twenty-fifth ring, but then the small sound of crackling turbulence filled my ear.
"Hello?"
"Errr, hi. This is Santana Lopez. My mother's one on your patients?"
"Oh," he replied. "Well, I'm sorry but I can't give you any information on your mother, if that's what you're calling for. Patient confidentiality and all that."
I had more interest in measuring the size of penises than I did in my mother's mental state. "No, I'm not calling for that. I just have a few general questions for you, for research purposes actually."
"Oh? Well in that case, I'll be happy to help. What did you want to know?" he asked.
I blew out a breath. "Rape victims. Is it normal for them to put themselves in situations that could trigger memories or feelings of the trauma that they suffered?"
He didn't say anything for a while, and then: "actually it's quite common. There's a little known principle in psychology called Repetition Compulsion, where the person who was traumatized engages in some sort of behavior associated with the trauma. Now of course, this is the exact opposite of what you'd expect a person to do, but certain psychologists are now saying that Repetition Compulsion is the victim's mind's way of attempting to 'master' the event, by reliving it and hoping it will – or forcing it to – turn out better. To add to that, some rape victims cannot achieve orgasm or get sexually excited at all, unless the sexual activity shadows the trauma that they've experienced in some way."
"Just…" I rubbed my fingertips across my forehead. "Wow."
"This, of course, is not a healthy impulse Santana. Rita Mae Brown said it best, 'Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.'"
"Well, err, thanks for the information," I said, my grasp on who Brittany was changing at a mile a minute.
"No problem Miss Lopez."
"Bye."
I touched the hang-up icon and flittered away the rest of the evening thinking about Brittany.
Spoiler: This chapter will brush on the topic of rape.