Though the ignorant bliss would have been rather nice, Blue certainly wasn’t born yesterday. There was nothing particularly legal a corrupt senator paedophile could do with five million smackeroos, though life would have been a great deal easier if there was. Standing in front of the door she had pressed open with her palm how many times, she no longer felt worthy of even knocking. Her husband would be on the couch, she could imagine. In part due to the softly muttering television. Whether he was with another woman was beyond her. A soul so faultless and free of the clutches of greed that had marred him. Only she had become its claws. A baroness of corruption. A product of the greed which she had eluded thus far, though clearly unsuccessfully. She had become that which had ruined this man’s life—though not with the same intentions. Perhaps that was untrue. Had she traded her husband’s innocence for another? For her own? It was a bit
She spoke before she could stop herself. “Would you think any less of me if I got into trouble?” She wondered more if she would think any less of herself. If that was even possible. But the man smiled. A small, soft smile.“If I did, how would I have expected you to do the same?” His stomach flexed as it flattened to hers. The gentle throw of his groin sheathed inside of her was all the comfort she could ever ask for. Yet she begged the man a bit more.“It was never your fault,” If only the police had agreed.“And it wouldn’t be your fault,” He drew away. Sucked in a breath as she tensed on his joystick. Felt his chest tighten with her gasp of quiet encouragement. Shy. Uninhibited.“You don’t know what I did,”“I know you would have done it for me.” Staring
Blue had imagined her death time and time again. She’d hoped to be laying in a hospital bed, a metal dish under her arse to catch her shit and a pad of paper to write down her thoughts sat in her lap. Her grandchildren would sit around her and try their utmost not to laugh when she farted especially loudly. Her children would scold them when they did; “Gran’s old,” They would hiss. “Is this how you want to remember your last moments with her?” But she’d be staring blankly at the roof. Vincent would be twenty years dead by then. Her only thoughts would be of hoping they’d meet in whatever darkness was awaiting her. That after the turmoil that had been her young adult life, death was sleep after a very long, very hard day.The scenario that she’d be ushered into her sperm-donors house by her fiancé with a gun in her back hadn’t existed in even her wildest fantasies. Fantasy was perhaps an
Staring at her father and her stepmother in bewilderment, she somehow had no urge to struggle. Not after their last altercation. Or the one that left her with a scarred cheek. Instead, she stumbled alongside him, feet feeling awfully heavy. And did her utmost not to land splat on her face lest he lose his patience and do away with her in the hallway. The fact that five million dollars had done little more than buy her plane ticket to the Maldives was completely out of her comprehension.Try as she might, no part of Blue was really to accept that the whole ordeal wasn’t a fever dream. And again, she wondered if she’d wake up from it all—though not in bed with Richard. Instead, she’d awake on the morning of her birthday party. Richard and Vincent had both been figments of her imagination. Manifestations of her fear of money and her desire to live quietly. Two opposites; one good and one evil. Considering one had shot her father in
“It’s not that simple,” Michael paused, staring at his daughter. She looked like she hadn’t slept in days. “From what I’ve gathered Richard destroyed the evidence my wife,” He glanced to the woman bitterly. It was a wonder they were still together. “Sold to him,”“So that’s it?”“No, I’m sure there’s something somewhere—Christopher isn’t half as smart as he thinks he is,” He glanced at the teenager who looked about as confused as he would have thought. “Richard and Vincent were friends all throughout school, there’s a point where it all went digital and that would have had to be when they both seemed old enough to do it themselves,” she looked even more confused. “He can’t be framing children, Blue, why would a five-year-old commit fraud?”“If the
“And you expect me to just trust you because...?” obscured by the hair that fell across Blue’s eyes with the tilt of her head, Marian looked quite young for a moment. If only a moment.“What do I have to gain from lying, Blue? My husband despises me, I’m a prisoner in my own home-”“Fine!” The moment Blue snapped, she felt rather guilty rather instantly. Slouched in her seat as the woman sent her a pointed stare. Curled her toes in her shoes. Out of shame? She wasn’t sure. “You can’t blame me for being cautious…”“No, I can’t.” Fiddling with her napkin, Marian cast her eyes to the table—feeling, too, something like shame. “But what other options do you have right now? Other than the obvious,”“Marrying Richard?”“Exactly.”&nbs
Vincent hadn’t said a word to her in a while. They had driven in silence. She had sat at the kitchen counter. Watched as he made her a green tea, eyes refusing her own. Admittedly, she felt rather nervous. Was her disappointed in her? A possibility she had only just considered. But he hadn’t even given her the time to explain. She knew that he was a grown man. Wondered if he wouldn’t care for the antics that had cleared his name simply because she’d caused a bit of a fuss with it all. And grown men didn’t like fusses. No, they’d much rather the quiet. And Blue, as it turned out, was certainly not quiet.Blue was guilty of assaulting a police officer, as it turned out. Something Vincent had paid the officer generously to forget. No, he was far more concerned with the fact she’d been printed in his morning newspaper proclaiming her guilt to protect her beloved fiancé—and the fact when he&rsqu
“For god’s sake, I’m pregnant with your child. Would you just listen to me?” Not caring much at all for the fact he’d swatted her away like a fly, she took the man by the face as she had before. Pressed herself up against him. Hoped he wouldn’t shove her away again and seethe something about how she’d betrayed him. “I love you; I wouldn’t do anything if I thought it would hurt you.”“You know Richard. Do you really think he’s innocent?”“No, of course I don’t think he’s innocent—I think that he slapped around his girlfriend, and he needs some help, but I also think that the only way to stop all of this isn’t by sending Richard to prison because nothing will stop them from blocking people’s payments after someone else has taken the blame.” He softened. Thought did struggle from his wife sl
She smiled a small smile. Rubbed her dampened palms across her jeans. “Fuck me, then.” She felt strange demanding it. A night in prison had her well-acquainted with her desire, it would seem. So much so that she was now unafraid of being rather crass about it. Fearless of whether she seemed juvenile or improper.“Not yet,” He met her with a gentle, brief kiss. Reached for her jeans again. Eased her onto the countertop. “I’ve been planning this for a while, you see,” Her heart jumped as he tugged her trousers to her ankles far too easily for her liking.“You have?”“I have.” He stood over her. Slid a hand inside of her underwear. Pressed his mouth against hers. Why did she feel like a patient on an operating table? She thought silently. Why did she like it?“What are you going to do?”She stared