Six

When he awoke the following morning, he walked by the room Eva had been sleeping in and noticed that her bed was untouched. She had not come home from her night out. Bryan was not surprised. That had been happening more and more lately.

Bryan could not be bothered with worrying about Eva anymore today. She's an adult, he thought, she knows right from wrong. This is all on her now.

He got his things together for his trip to New Hampshire. He would pick up Valerie, then head into the mountains, to a place he knew about where he and his daughter could paint in peace. No Eva glaring at Valerie like she was an intruder, and Valerie trying, and failing, to keep her hot temper in check.

Valerie hated Eva with such passion, such vitriol, that Bryan feared they'd come to blows. Most of the time, it was Eva egging Valerie on, knowing the girl had a short fuse. Bryan had cautioned Eva not to piss off Valerie, but he thought Eva liked messing with Valerie's head just for the fun of it.

Bryan sighed as he thought of the psychiatric visits and the anger management classes he had paid for over the last four years. Valerie was now on medication to control her temper, but it made the girl act like a zombie, a shadow of her former self.

Bryan knew it was the fall she took off a jungle gym at age eleven that sparked the near uncontrollable anger in his only child. Doctors told him and her mother that Valerie may have suffered some brain injury in the mishap. Since she was twelve, Bryan had been paying for treatment for Valerie, but most everything, short of a stay in the psych ward, had not done much good. His ex, Diana, wanted to send Valerie to a special school in Vermont that specialized in children with brain trauma, but Bryan wouldn't hear of it. Valerie was still a bright kid, a whiz at science and math, and, with her father's guidance, a talented artist. He noticed that Valerie was calm, almost peaceful, when she painted. It was a change her mother saw as well. Painting was Valerie's therapy, though an unconventional one, but one that seemed to help her. The only thing that threatened that was Valerie's hatred of her father's girlfriend.

It took about an hour to reach the house that Diana and Valerie lived in. Bryan always made good time when he left early. Valerie was waiting with her painting supplies and a big smile. She had always enjoyed a close father-daughter relationship with Bryan, despite his divorce from her mother.

Bryan walked into the house where Diana was waiting. They were cordial, getting along for the sake of their daughter. After Valerie packed a few things for their overnight trip, they were off on their adventure.

As they drove along, they caught up on things that had happened since their last visit. Bryan asked his daughter about school, and about the boy she had been dating.

"Oh, Jeff?" Valerie asked. "I'm not seeing him anymore. He's a loser."

"Oh, too bad, sweetheart," Bryan said. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"Don't be, Dad, he was a jerk."

Bryan knew better than to ask the reasons why. He thought he knew. If Valerie had a mind to tell, then she'd tell.

"You still with that evil bitch?" Val asked her father.

"Yes, Valerie, I'm still with Eva, but I'm thinking about telling her to get lost."

"She been whoring around town again?" Valerie asked. "Because I saw her doing that the last time I was down at your place."

"You mean when you went to your grandmother's house in Bradford?" Bryan asked. "Yes, she's still doing it, but she thinks I have no idea."

"She's so stupid, Dad. Dump the bitch. She's not good for you."

"I'm beginning to come to that realization, Valerie," Bryan said. "Can we not talk about my love life, please. You don't need to know every detail."

"Oh, all right…" Valerie slumped into the seat and pretended to sulk.

They arrived at the lodge within a couple of hours. They were shown to their cabin and settled in. Bryan thought this would be a good weekend to paint. He wanted to see what Valerie was doing on canvas. For her part, Valerie was eager to show her dad what she'd been painting. She was quite pleased with what she had recently finished. She wanted her dad's opinion on it, as she was thinking about entering it in a student art show.

As she had hoped, Bryan was very pleased with the self-portrait. Maybe, he thought, she'll go on to art school and pursue this seriously. Going to an art school was something that Valerie had been thinking about for a few months. Or perhaps, become a psychologist and help troubled kids like herself; maybe, do both. The whole world was open to her.

And she knew that her father would approve. That is, when she got the courage to tell him her plans.



Eva arrived at the house after she knew Bryan would be gone. She had been to bed, but that didn't necessarily mean that she slept.

She had spent the night with a man she called Francisco. That wasn't really his name, but it was close. She knew his real name, but as she always cried out her passions in Spanish, she translated her lover's name into Spanish as well.

Eva had all of today, Saturday, to herself, so she invited Francisco over for a little party. Just the two of them. She had told him that her asshole boyfriend was out of town, so they'd be alone with no distractions. Francisco had readily agreed to come over, and she gave him directions.

She sat on the couch and relaxed. She was glad that Bryan was gone. He was such a major pain in the ass. He bored her to tears, but he sure had a nice house, and she liked living in it. It beat the places near the hospital that she could afford on her nurse's salary. She had no desire to live in the same shitty little places like the ones she grew up in. All the men she fooled around with lived in the same kinds of houses, and she wanted no part of that.

She daydreamed about Francisco fucking her hard, and that got her all excited. She couldn't wait for him to get there, but wait she must. He had a clueless girlfriend that he had to get out of seeing that night to be with Eva.

Stupid bitch, Eva thought of the unseen and unnamed main squeeze of her current lover, she probably can't fuck him as good as I can. I know how to take care of my men, which is more than I can say about her.

Eva imagined that Francisco's girlfriend was a smart gal, but not smart enough to know when her man was playing around on her. That she was some sort of trusting person who believed everything Francisco told her. That she was closer to his age than Eva was. That she was an old broad.

"Well, well, you fuckin' old ho," Eva said aloud in a wicked tone of voice, "I got your man and you don't. I'm fuckin your man and you're not. I'm not going to be the one playin' with her pussy tonight, cuz I got your man."



She spent the rest of the day getting things ready for Francisco's visit. Just the right candles, the right toys, even the right sheets on the bed she and Bryan used to share. That oughta slay him, Eva thought, me fuckin another man in his bed. Serves him right, tryin to kick me out in the street.

At five to seven, the doorbell rang. Eva could not contain her excitement any longer. She thought she'd tear Francisco's clothes off him and take him right there in the doorway.

She opened the door and there he stood. My God, Eva thought, he looks even better than I thought. She showed him in and took the bottle of white wine from him and put it on ice.

"You got away from your bitch tonight, baby," Eva said as Francisco grabbed her and pulled her closer to him.

"Yeah," he said. "I told her I had an emergency at one of my buildings that needed my assistance right away."

Eva laughed. "An emergency! Oh, that's good! And she had no clue you're with me?"

"None, Eva. I'm all yours," he said as he unbuttoned her blouse.

At least, he thought, I hope that she has no clue.



Valerie thought the weekend was too short. It was Sunday afternoon already, and that meant that her dad would be taking her back home.

Valerie and her mom didn't always see eye to eye. She thought her mom was overprotective, strict, and could be a bitch sometimes. Her mother didn't like the boys she brought to the house, thinking that all they wanted was a quick roll in the sack.

What her mother, and her father, didn't know was that Val had been sexually active for nearly two years. She had been on birth control to regulate her cycles nearly as long, and Val took that to mean that she could have sex. And that's exactly what she did.

Val had lost her virginity to a nineteen year old man she met while visiting her paternal grandmother. Val was just a few weeks past her fourteenth birthday, but looked much older. The guy didn't even ask her age, he just assumed she was eighteen, and Val didn't bother to correct that assumption. He didn't even comment when she bled like a stuck pig afterwards.

Val's last boyfriend, Jeff, was the longest she had dated a boy, almost fourteen months. She didn't realize at first that Jeff was using her because she had little experience, but when Val did figure it out, she dropped Jeff like a bad habit. Jeff then tried to make Val look bad by spreading rumors about her, but Val fixed him good. Because Jeff had turned eighteen before they broke up, Val threatened to have him arrested for statutory rape. Since he was a popular jock and an honor student, he didn't want that to mess up the scholarships he'd won, so he backed off. He went off to college that summer, and Val didn't hear from him any more. Jeff's football pals knew that Valerie St. John was someone you didn't want to mess with, so they steered clear of her. Val, however, wasn't lacking for male attention, but she had become choosy about the guys she dated.

But now, Valerie realized, it was time to go back home. She really enjoyed the time she spent with her dad, and hated to see it end. Val thought about asking her mother about living with her dad during her senior year of high school, but if Eva was still in the picture, she knew that she couldn't do that.

"Ready to go, Val?" Bryan asked, noticing the glum look on her face.

"Yeah, I guess so," Valerie said. "But our weekends together get shorter and shorter, don't they?"

"You've noticed that, too, huh?" Bryan said. "It seems to happen that way when you get older."

"Tell me about it!" Valerie laughed. "There needs to be longer weekends, or we need to spend more time together."

Bryan sighed. He knew exactly what Valerie meant.

They got into the car and made their way down the mountain and back towards Valerie's house. Their weekends together were too short. For Bryan, this meant another stressful week living with Eva. He knew that Eva had to leave, but he didn't know how he'd go about it. The last time he told Eva to leave, Eva got the better of him by turning on the water works. Bryan knew he had to be tougher next time. Either that, or he'd make Eva want to leave.

But how would he do that?



Morning came much too early, Francisco thought as he woke up. Next to him, was yet another young woman, but one he was growing more and more attracted to.

Eva lived for sex, he decided, and for him, that was a good thing. Sex was all she was good for. Francisco couldn't see making a life with her, not one that would lead to marriage at any rate. But, if it was just a wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am relationship, then he could see it. Eva was, for all intents and purposes, a whore, and that's all she'd ever be. It was something that Francisco thought Eva's "asshole boyfriend" was coming to realize, that this woman from the drug and crime infested neighborhoods of Lawrence was a glorified whore.

Eva was still sleeping next to him, and he thought he'd wake her by sucking one of her nipples. She had nice tits, he thought, but not nearly as nice as those of his regular girlfriend. Now that lady had tits to brag about! Not that she did, because she wasn't that kind of woman. She wasn't like Eva. He thought that's why he sought out women like Eva, because his main squeeze, while she drove him wild in bed, didn't have that looseness that women like Eva had. She was a one man woman, but he wasn't a one woman man.

Francisco flicked his tongue across Eva's exposed breast, and she stirred. He kept this up until Eva was awake and turned on. "Mmmm," Eva said sleepily, "what a nice way to wake up…"

"I know, baby," Francisco said, knowing he was hard, and that hardness would soon be deep inside this horny slut, fucking her wildly while she begged him to take her harder and faster. Soon, he got what he'd been looking for, coming inside Eva while he played with her breasts and she groaning with pleasure. Francisco was careful not to say Eva's name as he climaxed. He wasn't thinking of Eva while he was fucking her. He was thinking of another woman, one who would be disappointed, but not surprised, when she learned of his trysts with Eva.

By one in the afternoon, Francisco was on his way back to his home in New Hampshire. He would see Eva again, but he didn't love her. Only one woman had his love.

And the guilt set in as he realized that he'd betrayed Coley's trust in him once again.