After Rae attended her classes, staring at her disorganized notes with bleary eyes, she opened the door to her dorm room, but no one returned her family greeting whistle. Hester must have gone to her own classes.
The study room, crowded with books on the desk, shelves, and floor, was silent. Rae’s neglected textbooks lurked on the shelves and her desk. In the bedroom, the beds were rumpled and empty.
All of Hester’s elementary education textbooks were still lined up on her shelves, grouped by class meeting time. Rae peeked in Hester’s clothes drawers, and her clothes were still there, folded and tucked in. Hester must not have asked for a room transfer, or she hadn’t received one yet. She must have taken down the posters for another reason.
Perhaps because even those posters were too worldly, and she wasn’t going to lead Rae further astray with posters of Christian music.
At least she meant well.
Rae flopped on her bed, intending to nap until her lab at three-thirty.
Someone knocked on the door to the bathroom that they shared with Lizzy and Georgie, rattling the plywood door hung loosely in its frame.
“Come in,” Rae groaned, though she wanted to be left alone to sleep more than anything.
Georgie stuck her head through the half-open door. Her wet hair stuck to her clean face. Rae had never noticed the pale freckles sprinkled over Georgie’s nose and cheekbones before, probably because Georgie slathered on make-up before going to the dining hall for breakfast.
Georgie asked, “You alone?”
“Yeah.” Rae struggled up to sitting, fighting the knit afghan and her own sleepy head.
Georgie pushed the door open and bounced on Hester’s bed. “Good. Hester sobbed all afternoon yesterday. I could hear her through the walls.”
“Oh, Jesus.” Rae fell back on the bed, which barely bounced because the box spring was shot.
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t even know where to start.” She flipped the afghan over her head. Sunlight wove through the yarn from the window high above.
“Where were you this weekend?” Georgie asked.
“Home.” Rae could tell her that much, so she sat up, pulled the afghan from over her face, and explained about Aunt Enid’s Celebration of Life turning into a fiasco when a Devilhouse client, her uncle-cousin-relation Jim Bob, outed her and tried to sell her to human traffickers as a prostitute-slave.
Rae could see eye white all the way around Georgie’s brown irises. “Jesus, Mary, Mother of God, Joseph, and all the saints in Heaven! What the Hell!”
“It’s a Border town,” Rae explained. “All sorts of shit goes down.”
Georgie leaned on her arms like she was watching a fascinating horror movie on TV. “How did you get away from them?”
And there lay the rub, and the secrets. A lot of secrets.
“I really need to talk about something, but I can’t,” Rae said. “I’ve gotten involved with something, with a guy, and I don’t know what I’m doing.”
To Rae’s horror, a tear slipped out of her eye and splashed on the brown and red knit stripes. She rubbed the moisture off her cheek, but Georgie had seen it fall.
George switched beds and sat beside her. Rae let her face fall into her hands.
Georgie wrapped her arms around Rae’s shoulders. She smelled like girlie soap and the rosemary shampoo that she kept in the shower. “Go ahead. Tell me about it.”
“I can’t!” Rae was dangerously close to wailing. She gulped it all down.
“Tell me what you can.” Georgie patted her shoulder.
“There’s this guy.” She stopped before she spilled Wulf’s secrets.
“Is this guy a slave trader?” Georgie’s tone carried less judgment than if she had asked about him being an accountant.
“No. He saved me from them. He shot two of them when they were shooting at me.”
“Involved in some other crime syndicate?”
“No.”
“Okay. Is he related to you?”
“He’s as not-related to me as anyone could be and still be a human.”
“Okay. That was going to be my next question. Does he want you to drop out of college and sign a contract to be his empty-headed sex slave?”
“No.”
“At least Lizzy’s Master isn’t two-timing her. Did you meet him at The Devilhouse? Because the contract does have a non-compete clause which could kind of cover that.”
“Not exactly.”
“I’m getting tired of playing Twenty Questions here, but it doesn’t seem like it could be that bad, whatever it is.”
Rae gathered her pride and ripped it up. She needed help, so she put her arms around Georgie’s slim waist and admitted, “It’s The Dom.”
“Oh, Rae. We went through this unrequited shit with Lizzy, honey. He’s not the type. He likes women, in the plural, a lot of women, and he’s just an empty, shiny shell.” She adjusted her arms around Rae, holding her tighter. “I shouldn’t have introduced you to him. You sweet girls are drawn to him like he’s chocolate-covered crack.”
Rae inhaled hard. Another tear slipped down her cheek. “He’s not a shiny shell. Well, he has a shiny shell, but he’s been hurt, a lot. He’s kind of hiding from the world, here.”
“Do you know stuff about him?” Georgie’s voice seemed like she was picking her words as carefully as hopping across a stream on moss-covered rocks.
“Yeah. He told me,” Rae inhaled, “stuff.”
“Like what?”
“He’s really private, but it’s not bad stuff. Or, it’s not evil stuff. I can’t believe some of the stuff about himself that he’s managed to hide from everyone here, for years.”
“Fine. Tell me something.”
“I can’t. Not right now. I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Okay, don’t tell me a secret, but tell me something about him. Something real.”
Rae drew a shuddering breath in, racking her brain and trying to plow past all the stuff that Wulf had dumped on her. “He’s funny, but he’s shy about it.”
Georgie cocked her head sideways, like that heavy nugget had rolled to one side of her skull and caused it to list to the starboard. “No shit. Those are two words that I didn’t think anyone would ever call The Dom: funny or shy. You don’t think of The Dom as having a sense of humor. Sure, he’s intense, authoritative, perceptive, calculating, domineering, controlling, and freakishly charismatic, like you can’t take your eyes off him, but there’s always that little bit of panic in there that, if he turned all of that on you, a normal person would melt under the heat.”
“I think he dials it up for The Devilhouse. When he’s not there, he turns all that down a couple notches.”
“Which one’s real?”
“I don’t know. Both?”
“Well, we still don’t know what happened to that black cat that he said he’d ‘take care of.’ That still disturbs me.”
“He took her home and named her Brunhilde, and she’s spoiled rotten. She eats off his plate.”
“You’ve been to The Dom’s house?”
“Yeah. It’s huge. He has a staff.”
“God, a staff at his house. He must terrorize them.”
Rae didn’t answer that one.
“I’ll be damned. The sweet little ingénue trapped the big, bad Dom. That’s why no one has gotten a blow job bonus in, like, months.”
“No, I haven’t trapped him at all. He’s leaving. He sold The Devilhouse and he’s out of here.”
“Oh, shit! He sold The Devilhouse?” Georgie pushed Rae backwards to stare at her face. “He’s closing down the fucking Devilhouse?”
Rae waved her hands. “It’s not like that! He said that everyone’s contracts are still valid and that everything will be the same, same pay, same people, just a change of management.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah.”
Georgie clutched her heart. “Jesus. I have everything riding on this. Without The Devilhouse, I can’t even finish my undergrad, let alone go to law school. Are you sure?”
“He said that there’ll be a staff meeting soon to explain it all. Nothing will change. He’s going to have everyone sign binding contracts that can’t be screwed up by the new guy. Don’t tell anyone.”
Georgie wrapped her arms back around Rae. “Okay, okay. So, he’s leaving and you’re sad. You’ll get over him. Lizzy sure as hell did.”
“He asked me to go to Paris with him next week for spring break.”
“No shit.” Georgie’s voice held awe. “And then he’s leaving you.”
“Yeah. But he’s right to. It’s like,” Rae cringed inside, “a bird and a fish can fall in love, but where could they build their nest? It’s just like that. One of us should break it off, now, before it hurts too much.”
Too late.
Georgie said, “Wow. He is all kinds of empty shellness.”
“He’s not, and I don’t know what to do.”
Georgie rocked her a little. “So go! Have one last string of Dom-Dates in Paris—freaking Paris!—and then come back, work at the D-house, and save the cash for your autism clinic. Besides, after a whole week of Dom-Dates, I’ll be the jewelry will be amazing.”
“Oh, I’ve never accepted any jewelry from him.”
“Are you nuts?”
“It’s ridiculous, a guy sending you jewelry for being with him for one night. Made me feel kind of cheap.”
“I think he does it in good faith. I’ve never seen him be cruel to a Devilhouse contractor.”
“I gave it all back. I kept the used Shakespeare books that he gave me.”
“Well, you should keep this jewelry that he’s going to give you this time. I don’t see a problem with you going to Paris with him, unless it’s that you might not be able to walk for a month afterward. Damn, Rae. I am so jealous.”
“Don’t be.” Rae started crying in earnest. “I can’t go. Oh, God. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t ever cry like this.”
Georgie rocked her back and forth. “Have you ever been in love before?”
“No! And I’m not now! Because he’s leaving!”
Oh, God, she was lying, and she knew it. When he had admitted all that royal stuff, it was like a golden cloud had descended around him and cut off all the air that she was breathing.
Georgie asked, “How long?”
“I’m not! I’m really not!”
Since I pulled his shirt off in the Devilhouse and knew there was more than that shiny shell.
Since he took me to his house, and when he made love to me, it was like he was looking into my soul and giving me all of his.
Since he went home with me, even though he didn’t have to, and since he was kind to my family, even though they needled him.
Since he followed me into the desert, when no one else did.
Because when I’m with him, I can breathe.
Because when I’m with him, I don’t feel all alone anymore.
Because when I’m with him, I feel like I can grow, and he will still love me. “I’m not in love with him!”
“Oh, Rae. I’m so sorry, honey.” Georgie stroked her hair. “Go. Just go to Paris. Give yourself one last week with him. Don’t try to change his mind. Don’t think about what-might-have-been. It might be a little bittersweet, but later, you’ll regret it if you don’t give yourself that time with him. I made that mistake once. Live for the moment.”
Time to spill the rest. Rae smeared her tears with her hands and breathed hard until she caught her breath. “Or, instead of going to Paris with The Dom for an extended one night stand, I could quit college, trash the my stupid dream of having an autism clinic, and go back to Pirtleville so my family won’t throw me out and never speak to me again because I’ve become too worldly and am losing my soul.”
Georgie stopped rocking her. “They gave you an ultimatum?”
“No. They’ve already disfellowshipped me and shunned me. If I drop out and go back this week, they’ll take me back, and I won’t have to live the rest of my life alone.”
Georgie smirked. “Well, that’s a tough choice. Let me see. You could have all your dreams, help disabled children lead full lives, and take a booty-moon to France, or you could go back to the place where Hester is the norm and the autistic kids can go to hell.”
Georgie was going to make a fine lawyer someday.
“But how can I trade my family for anything? They’re everything to me.”
“From what you said, they threw you out.”
“But they’ll take me back. They’ll forgive me, and I won’t be all alone.” Inside Rae’s chest, something fluttered like a panicked butterfly caught between her palms.
“Honey, if they threw you out once, they will do it again.”
“They won’t. I’ll know what’s at stake this time. I won’t argue with them. I’ll be good.”
“Rae, sweetie, during your initiation to vodka, you told me that going to that church made you feel like you were going to snap in half. Now, you can go back there and be as quiet as a little gray mouse for as long as you can stand it, or you can take that second step into the rest of your life. Which is it going to be?”
Rae had to choose her family. Of course she did.
Right?