My Stepmom’s Open Door(2)

I drop to my knees on instinct. The hardwood bites into my skin. Helen circles me once, the silk of her robe whispering with every step, then stops in front of me. Her fingers slide into my hair and tilt my head back until I have no choice but to meet her eyes.

“Look at me.”

I hesitate. Just for a second. Long enough for her gaze to sharpen, for the quiet in the room to turn heavy. My face burns with more than embarrassment.

“I said look.”

I look. Her eyes are steady and dark, and there’s no cruelty in them, only certainty, the certainty of someone who has been planning this for a long time. She holds my gaze, teaching me with quiet corrections: breathe slowly, stay still, don’t fight it. When she finally lets go I gasp, but I don’t try to stand up. I stay on my knees because some part of me, terrified, furious, aching, wants to see what she’ll do next.

She draws me to my feet and guides me toward the bed. The nightgown slips a little on one shoulder. I catch it, then let it fall again. The cool air touches my collarbones. I don’t remember deciding to follow her. I only remember the mattress dipping beneath me, her hands warm against my arms, and the way she looked down at me as if she had already decided I was hers.

“Wait,” I whisper.

She doesn’t answer. She only smiles, small and certain.

The next stretch of time comes to me in pieces, never in order. The heat of her breath near my ear. The slow weight of her hand on my shoulder. The faint creak of the bedframe when one of us shifts. My own heartbeat loud in my ears. It frightens me and it steadies me in the same breath, and I can’t separate the two. Tears prick my eyes. My hands twist in the sheets. She watches my face the whole time, reading every flinch and every shallow breath.

“You wanted this,” she says, voice low. “Don’t pretend otherwise now.”

I want to deny it. I want to say that she is wrong, that I never imagined this, that I’m only here because I couldn’t think of a way to say no. But the words won’t come, because they wouldn’t be true, and she knows it.

The room tilts. Time comes loose and drifts. At some point I turn my face into the pillow. At some point I stop trying to stay quiet. When it finally slows, I’m trembling, my skin too warm, every thought scattered.

Helen sits back and studies me. The lamp on her nightstand throws a warm glow across her shoulders, and her hair has come loose from its tie. She looks calm. She always looks calm. I don’t know whether I admire that or hate it.

“Now you’re going to listen to me,” she says, “and you’re going to do it right.”

I nod. My mouth is dry. I’m not sure what I’m agreeing to, only that I can’t stop.

I think of my father. I think of every dinner where Helen passed me the salt and asked how my day had been, and I wonder how long she has been looking at me like this, and how I missed it. I’m not sure I missed it. I think I knew all along, and I think I let myself not know.

Her hand rests on my shoulder, steady and warm. My breath comes in short, shallow pulls. The room smells of her perfume and the faint heat of the lamp, and I’m aware of everything at once: the clock on the dresser, the muffled hum of the house settling, the thin line of light beneath the door.

Then the bedroom door opens without a knock.

Fred stands in the doorway holding a bottle of wine. I recognize him at once. Helen’s business partner, the one who has been coming by the house for months whenever my father’s away. Helen doesn’t look surprised. He must have a key, and she was expecting him.

My whole body goes cold. Embarrassment floods me. Someone else is seeing me like this, half-covered, still on the bed, hair a mess, face flushed.

Helen doesn’t move. She doesn’t even flinch. She just looks at him over her shoulder, calm as anything, and says,

“Close the door. You’re late.”