9781618859617TheSecretLifeofanInvisibleGirlDeVere (4 page)

While I debated whether to get another glass or leave, I
heard Simon’s voice. “Mind if I sit with you?” he asked, sitting beside me with
his own plate of food. “Looks like Hawkins has found someone else to review his
briefs.” He stuffed his mouth with a miniature Beef Wellington.

I wondered how long it had taken Simon to come up with that
witticism, but the remark cleared my confusion and self-pity like the sun on
morning fog. I’m fond of double entendre, although not at my expense. The line
was also sufficient to push the button that transformed me into Iron Man ready
for battle, complete with armored skin plating. “I thought you were sick.”

“I was considering your offer.”

I scoffed. “Offer. That’s putting quite a bright spin on
it. I’m glad to see you’re optimistic.”

“More optimistic than you.” He pointed with another hors
d’oeuvre in the direction of where I sensed rather than knew John Hawkins stood.
I kept my attention fixed on Simon.

“It didn’t mean anything anyway,” I lied and in tribute to
my weakness in deceit, I raked him up and down. “And now you have less than you
had at the Estate…so to speak.” I stared at him with enough intensity he put
down the hors d’oeuvre poised at his mouth. “No one would believe you.” I
paused. “By the way, how’s your wife? Is she with you tonight?” I smiled and
looked around.

“She didn’t want to come.”

“Didn’t want to or couldn’t?” I turned back to him and let my
double entendre sink in. When Simon looked away, I continued. “The time for
consideration is over. It’s time to decide.” He glanced at me sideways. Even
with clothes and without a gun, the power from the motel returned. I narrowed
my eyes. “Or the decision will be made for you.” I stood to go and collided with
John Hawkins who had managed to make his way over to us. He was alone.

“Whoa, where are you going?” he asked.

I had wanted to make an exit, throw the gauntlet at Simon, and
leave. This was not in the battle plan. “I need to go,” I said under my breath.

“I’d like you to meet someone.”

I stared at him with genuine surprise. Shocked, mortified
would not be too strong to identify the emotion that left me speechless. Meanwhile,
Simon slinked away, likely not willing to be in the direct vicinity where he
expected an explosion. He was good at slinking.

“I need to go,” I repeated and saw what may have been
bewilderment in John’s eyes or something like hope. It may just have been that
my eyes at the time were beginning to blur. I left before my tears fell, a
stellar evening marred by clouds of uncertainty.

Still early when I got home, I changed into my pajamas and
found my copy of
Othello
determined
to immerse myself in the play, forget Simon and John Hawkins, and redeem the
evening. Shakespeare did not play along.
Iago
has a
lovely soliloquy in the first scene that ends, ‘I am not what I am.’ I was in
hell and sympathized with the devil.

* * * *

The following Monday, or on the eleventh day of torture, my
boss told me Simon would not be returning to the office and to place an ad in
the legal weekly for an associate. It was as though some unseen director had
flipped a switch and yelled, “Action!”

“I know someone who might be interested in the position. Can
I let him know and give you his résumé?”

“Sure. Do I know him?”

“I don’t want to speak for him, but he’s a DA.”

“Good, someone with experience. I like him already. Place
that ad anyway though. Not everyone wants to do what we do.”

Emboldened by my triumph with Simon I walked over to the
DA’s office ready to take on any comers. I felt like I could rule the world and
be good at it. Granted there was still the issue of the woman from the parking
lot, but I suddenly held the added attraction of employment that paid at least twice
as much as the Commonwealth. I swaggered until I thought about what I actually
had to accomplish, the conversion of the angel. The closer I got, the more I
believed my mission was impossible in the plainest and most straightforward
sense of the phrase. DAs held the moral high ground. It was their currency,
their raison d’être. They ate, drank and slept moral high ground. Defense
attorneys and their assistants were relegated to the eighth circle of hell
where, I had to admit, we rightly belonged. I once helped defend a client who
extinguished his cigarette on the forehead of the seventy-year-old woman he had
raped and killed. We checked our judgment and cashed our checks. Sure, we held
out our adored founding father John Adams,
as the patron saint of defense attorneys who
steadfastly defended the British soldiers following the Boston Massacre and
obtained an acquittal, but that was an illusion. Defense attorneys will try to
convince you that John Adams did this noble deed because he believed in justice
and that everyone deserved a defense. I had done the research, and the truth was
he wanted to control the propaganda surrounding the trial and minimize the role
of the crowd in inciting the soldiers. He would not have defended the soldiers
unless he had had complete control of the defense and had been assured of the
outcome. Control had been the key, as it was to me now.

“I’m here to see John Hawkins,” I said to the receptionist.

“Is he expecting you?”

“No,” I answered with authority and assurance, no excuses.
People respond to confidence.

“Do you know where—”

“Yes,” I said before she finished and walked over to his
office. I knocked on the open door, and he looked up, surprised to see me.

“Come in.” He got up and walked around his desk much in the
same way he had done the first time we met and went behind me to shut the door.
He put his arms around me from behind, and I stiffened even though my heart
quickened at his touch.

“Really?” I asked and turned to face him, feeling my anger
rise to destroy any leverage I might have had. I expected subterfuge, some
betraying glance, an attempt at humor, but not a guiltless welcome. My
aspirations for control vanished, replaced by an overwhelming desire to smite
him, the person who, I decided in that instant, had been the cause of my
turmoil from the moment I first saw him. In a single countering gesture, I
tossed the well-rehearsed script I’d written to convince him of the merits of
consorting with evil and tease him into compliance out the window into the path
of an eighteen-wheeler, and replaced it with a barely coherent
stream-of-consciousness diatribe that began, “Do you buy condoms in bulk?”

I know jealous rage is not the most appealing emotion in a
woman, but you must know by now that I have limits to what I can endure, which
I grant are fairly low. The invective had to be sufficiently fierce to strangle
the part of me wanting him more than ever. I had intended a prolonged plan of
revenge for after he joined our firm, exquisite in its conception and detail,
and
as excruciating
as it would be satisfying in its execution. But, have I mentioned I’m not good
at waiting?

He didn’t respond immediately, but he did let me go and
took a step back. When I finished, I expected him to be defensive but the
silence lengthened uncomfortably, long enough for my mind to hiss at me,
Shit, he’s going to be nice, you fucking
idiot
.

“I don’t know what you mean,” he said.

With this open-ended remark I had several options. I could
have tried to take it all back, say I was sorry and burst into tears. I could
have launched into the saga of Simon and how I’d saved his ungrateful ass. I
could have said, you know exactly what I mean, or reverted to the old standby
really
? Instead, realizing I had just
confessed that he hurt me and had the power to do so, I said, “I don’t know,
either,” and looked away.

“The woman you saw the other day…”

His words trailed off and I looked back at him steeling
myself for the next phrase. “What?” I asked irritated, frustrated.

“She’s my sister,” he said and smiled. “You could have met
her the other day, but you ran off.”

“Fuck you,” I said, tears now stinging my eyes. The old ‘She’s
my sister’ routine did not happen in real life. No one mistakes a sister for a
lover. “You kissed her on the mouth,” I added
as proof and instantly realized I had just
admitted exactly how much attention I had paid to them. The hole I was digging
was getting deeper, and there was no end in sight.

“It may have seemed that way to you.” He moved over to me
and ran a hand under my hair. “But it’s not the same as kissing you,” he
whispered and mercifully shut me up.

His lips were soft, and I was so relieved not to talk I
sighed. He pushed his tongue into my mouth and his taste spurred my memory of
our encounters and the promise they held. He placed a hand on my breast while the
other stroked across my back. I wanted more, but couldn’t escape the thought of
our ever present predicament.

I broke the moment. “I need your résumé.” He looked at me
with a confused expression. “There’s an opening at the firm. The job’s
practically yours if you want it,” I continued stumbling as my mind scrambled
to rescue the remnants of my rehearsal. “Don’t even think of turning this
down.”

I hoped my voice did not betray the plea I felt. This was
the way out I had conceived and envisioned when Simon threatened me. John
Hawkins would join the firm and advance his career, and we could be together. I
had played the part of an impresario, my best work yet, and the rest was up to
him. I was vulnerable, more than with Simon, because I was not in control. I
waited for him to respond. Nothing, not even the interminable wait for a jury
to return with a verdict, had prepared me for the overwhelming agony, the need
and the doubt.

“I’ll have to think about it.” The death-knell response.
Think? This was not the time to think. It
was the time to act.
He caressed my cheek and looked into my eyes. “Is it
what you really want?” he asked seeing through all, through me, through my
designs, plans and plotting. I had not once questioned whether it was what I
wanted or what it might mean, only that it had to be done like some challenging
assignment, a puzzle solved.

“I thought so,” I said. “Do you not want to work for the
defense?”

“It’s not that.”

“If it’s not that, then it’s me, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he said, “but I have to get to court, now.” He took
a sheet from a drawer in his desk and handed it to me. I took the résumé and he
held me close, kissed me then left. All I could think was,
be careful what you wish for
.

Chapter Four

I was still in bed doing the crossword puzzle with the rest
of the Sunday paper splayed over my comforter when the phone rang in the
kitchen. Too curious to ignore it, I dug myself out and answered on the fourth
or fifth ring. “Hello?” I said out of breath.

It was John. “Good morning. I have an offer you can’t
refuse.”

“What? More extortion?”

“Let’s go to Salem for the day.” When I didn’t respond
immediately, he continued. “It’s beautiful out. We can go to the Willows. I
used to go there as a kid. There’s the beach, and we can hang out, and there won’t
be anyone there we know.” He sounded excited, actually he sounded like this was
one of the best ideas he’d ever had. I was just about to respond, when he
added, “That is if you’re not going to church.”

He met me at the Salem train station in a worn T-shirt and
jeans, looking like he had just sizzled off the cover of a romance novel, his
enthusiasm for the adventure obvious and infectious. The Willows was a small,
make that tiny, amusement park along the water consisting of two arcades,
kiddie rides, and carnival food, strewn with large gangly willow trees, their
branches swaying like hula skirts. The effect was magical. Okay, the company
may have had something to do with it, or the fact that I beat his fine looking
jean clad ass at
skeeball
, even though he had had all
the practice.

“You’re competitive, aren’t you?” he asked above the
screeching voices of children bouncing off the walls.

“You just noticed that now?” I said from the alley beside
his. “Aren’t you?”

“I just like getting the ball in the hole.” He shrugged and
rolled another ball. I laughed, watching it pop and arc into the slot.

We cashed in our tickets for trinkets and held hands as we
strolled over to the carousel, echoing the contented leisure activity of
generations. We watched the children on horses bob up and down and wave to
their parents at each turn, both a greeting and farewell. After sampling the
aromas from the strip of vendors and gorging on caramel popcorn and lemonade,
we walked down to the beach. The sun hovered low and a breeze blew over the shimmering
water. He stood behind me, and I nestled into him, enjoying his warmth. When he
wrapped his arms around me, I put mine out to each side like Rose on the
Titanic
fully aware of, but not caring
about, the absurdity. Rose had the right idea. With the wind pushing against
me, it felt like flying. I closed my eyes.

He bent his head down, his breath tickling my neck. “I
don’t want just sex,” he whispered in my ear.

“Neither do I…but sometimes that’s all I want.”

“I know. Me too.”

I turned to look at him, and this was part of the magical
part. Amid the distant calliope sounds and the dizzying lights of the carousel
in the dusk, he kissed me, his lips soft and tasting of caramel. If you had
been in my place, you probably would have ended it there—the setting sun, the
perfect kiss, the end. But, no, the sordid scenario with Simon had been nagging
me all afternoon, a pesky dog nipping at my feet while I tried to kick it free.

I seized the moment. “Can I tell you something as an
attorney? I mean, attorney-client privilege and everything?” He was still a DA
after all and would have been duty bound to report my crime spree. The
attorney-client privilege would prevent him from disclosing any confession
involving past acts and would relieve him of any moral dilemma. It would also
protect me, in case he didn’t entirely appreciate my methods.

“Now what?”

“Just humor me.”

“Okay,” he said. “The privilege is hereby invoked.”

“Scout’s honor?” I added, a belt and suspenders never
having hurt anyone except in a fashion sense.

“Scout’s honor,” he repeated, signaling with his hand.

We walked along the water, and he listened to me unburden
myself piecemeal, offering snippets, fully and frightfully aware of how crazy I
sounded even though I tried to control the spin. He was silent, so I kept
talking, filling the void with more details and justifications, glancing at him
now and then to gauge his reaction, until my need for his response became
greater than my need to continue. I stopped and confronted him.

“Is this some kind of interrogation technique? Say
something.”

He put his hands on my shoulders. “I didn’t realize it had
gotten that far. You should have told me at the time.”

“And what would you have done?” I challenged.

“Not what you did.”

“Obviously.” I paused while the mental image formed and made
me laugh. He laughed, too. I took his hands from my shoulders, and we resumed
walking. “I don’t want anything from you,” I continued. “I just wanted to let
you know.”

“Good thinking about the privilege,” he said.

“It’s what I do.” We walked in silence, my mind debating
the wisdom of my rash confession as I watched the water advance and retreat,
mimicking my turmoil.

“Thank you,” he said finally. “Thank you for trusting me,
even if you couldn’t then.” This time he stopped and faced me. “I want you to
feel that you can confide in me and know that I have your back.”

“Well, you have all of me now,” I said.

Sweeping a strand of hair from my face, he kissed me, his
lips at first brushing mine, before deepening, while my sense of relief also
deepened to a satisfying calm, a contrast to the hurricane of the past weeks.

* * * *

Within the week John Hawkins had interviewed at the firm
and been offered and accepted the position as Simon’s replacement with a caveat.
My boss, like some Nostradamus with a twisted mind, decided to implement a new
policy of banning intra-office relationships. I did not know where he came up
with this brilliant idea, but thought Simon may have had some part in it. I
ventured an innocent inquiry on the constitutionality of the policy only to be
rebuffed with “It may not be constitutional, but it’s the law” which meant a
challenge would not be expedient.

Now I understood the expression ‘out of the frying pan into
the fire’, although I didn’t reckon it would be so literal. Instead of keeping
temptation across the street at a bearable simmer, I had managed to bring it
home to blaze beside me. For the two weeks it took John Hawkins to give notice
and start at the firm I tried to think of an escape, but like an author with
writer’s block I got nothing.

So it happened John Hawkins came to work at the firm and
readily adapted to the life of a defense attorney with such aplomb, I wondered
if he had played me to get his position in some Machiavellian plan worthy of,
well, me. For several days we had no time alone and were civil. On the fourth
day I stayed late preparing for a trial, and I thought I was alone until he
walked into my office and stood at my desk.

“What?” I asked, looking up.

“We’re alone.” He walked around to my side, close to me. I
could feel the heat from his body. “Are you sure you don’t want anything from
me?”

I stood up, pushing back my chair and grazing my body
against his. He embraced me, his lips found mine, enticing my smothered passion
to the surface. Reaching my hand around his neck, I rose to meet him, thrusting
my tongue into his mouth and devouring his lips, wanting the taste and the
scent of him. I pulled off his tie, opened his shirt, and rested my head
against his breast, listening to his heart’s rapid beat while my fingers roamed
over his chest.

“We could get fired,” I said.

“I know. That’s why I suggested the policy.”

“What?” I asked pulling away from him. “You? Why on earth
would you do that?”

“Because you got what you wanted, and I didn’t want you to
lose interest,” he said smiling.

Have I mentioned the man can see me and see through me? Eve
did not crave an apple. She wanted the fruit, and it tasted sweeter, because it
was forbidden. I kissed and licked down his chest and knelt before him,
squeezing and releasing the firm muscles of his ass to unzip his pants. Closing
his eyes, he let me do as I pleased and rested his hand on my head. Freeing his
hard cock, I moved my hand along the shaft and over the knob, caressing its
length and thickness. My other hand stroked his balls. I kissed the head,
sucking at it and licking, while his hand urged me to continue. Taking the tip
into my mouth, I rolled my tongue under the head. He pushed his cock into my
mouth, giving me its length to the back of my throat. Holding the root with my
hand, I pulled back sucking and pressing my tongue underneath.

I kissed and licked his thighs to his balls, taking one
then the other into my mouth, flicking my tongue around them. Leaving them to
take in his cock back inside my mouth, I fondle his balls with my fingers. Opening
his eyes, he gazed down at me as he groaned and thrust his hips, gently
stroking into my mouth and holding my head. When he pulled back, I pressed my
lips around his shaft and sucked at the length, twirling my tongue around the
head, my hands on his ass, pulling him to me. Circling his hole briefly, the
tip of my finger found the way inside. His motions quickened until he grunted
and came in my mouth. Still thrusting, his semen gushed to the back of my
throat as I swallowed. When he stilled, I licked his cock clean.

Helping me up, his stare bore through me, inflaming my
desire. He unbuttoned my blouse and peeled the silky fabric from my shoulders.
Unclasping my bra, he revealed my breasts and bent to kiss me, thrusting his
tongue into my mouth. Cupping my breasts, he teased the stiff nipples with his
fingers, before licking and sucking them and stroking his hand down the small
of my back over my ass. He slowly kissed down my body as I had done to his. Unzipping
my pants, he pulled them and my panties down to the floor. In one movement he
swept aside books and papers, and lifted me onto the desk before him.

Weaving my fingers through his hair, I pulled him to me
again, eager for his kiss. Standing between my legs, he eased me down, placing
my blouse beneath my head before he kissed the length of my body. Holding my
legs, he set my feet on the edge of the desk opening me to him. He knelt and
kissed the lips of my cunt as he had my mouth, thrusting his tongue into my
opening. Plunging his hands beneath my ass, he licked me and the juices flowing
from me, his hot breath breezing against my thighs. Letting my knees drop to
each side, I grabbed my feet with my hands opening wider and giving him access
to my being. My lips swelled and my cunt pulsed. He moved his mouth to my clit
and licked and sucked as I had done to his cock, taking it into his mouth and
flicking his tongue against it.

I moaned in agony and delight, pushing my hips to meet him.
Releasing a hand from my ass, he teased my clit, twirling his tongue around the
edge of my opening before piercing within. His touch became insistent and
unbearable. I came hard to the rhythm of his licks running up the length of my
slit with the width of his tongue.

Before my orgasm subsided, I whispered, “Fuck me,” with
urgency and measured breaths. While I watched on raised elbows, he reached down
to his pants crumpled at his feet, removed a condom from the pocket, and ripped
the packet open with his teeth.

“Oh, God, don’t make me wait,” I cried.

He smiled while he stroked his cock already stiff and slid
on the thin membrane. Smiling still he drove his cock into my cunt, renewing my
spasms. Cupping his hands around the top of my thighs, he pulled me closer,
pushing with his hips. He filled me, grinding his hips, his balls slapping
against my ass. Thrusting within me, alternating his strokes, long, slow,
faster, short, hard, grinding, he pumped me again and again, the sounds of our
fucking shattering the quiet night. Stepping back, he pulled out, his cock
glistening with my moisture.

I sighed insensible and begged. “Fuck me.”

Holding his cock, he rubbed the head between my lips and
clit before pushing slowly within me, penetrating me until our hairs mingled. Sheathed
within me, he stopped, leaning over me to kiss me. I took his tongue in my
mouth, his cock throbbing in my cunt. Buried deep, he straightened and watched
me, not moving.

“You’re teasing me,” I accused.

“What? You don’t like to be teased?”

The sound of his voice flowed over me, his cock stirred
within me, and his thumb circled my clit. With his renewed thrusts, my body
ached with building tension and the strain of my want. He quickened his
movements until we both came and release surged through my body, making us one.

Panting with his arms on either side of me, he stayed
within me long enough to catch his breath before pulling out. Grabbing my right
arm, he drew me up before him, smoothed my hair, kissed me, and held me against
him. Still breathing heavily, his sweat on my skin, I embraced him in return, burrowing
my face into his neck and inhaling his scent.

That’s the whole truth or most of it, anyway. We’ve been
working together ever since that night. To everyone, but him, and now you, I
remain
an invisible girl with a secret
life
.