Chapter 5-3 (Patreon)

The near-complete version of chapter 5-3: The Long Night.

This is a bit of a short bridging scene between Julia's backstory and the final sweep of her revenge.

Though I think some parts of it are important - it should be building up some ambiguity about Tom's role in all this - I do wonder if the scene is, in fact, necessary - and whether I should excise the whole thing in the final edit to up the pacing a bit.

Well, in any case, enjoy! And as always, If you want to, why not let me know what you think?

***

Three: The Long Night

“Hold up,” I interrupt. There were plenty of other times I wanted to break into her little fairy tale. But it’s her story, so I kept silent. Not this time, though. “Tom got my job?”

            Her voice is a little hoarse from all the talking, red wine dry and tired. I’m tired, too. A glance at the clock confirms it’s well past midnight. We’ve both got work tomorrow. I suspect she’ll be taking the day off or work from home. A luxury Cindy can scarcely afford. If I don’t show for work, I don’t get paid. Money’s pretty tight. But even for that, I don’t know if I’ve got it in me to sit behind that receptionist desk and smile, smile, smile all day. Maybe I can ask Michael for a favour and swap for some cubicle work where I can hide out of the way for the day. It’s crossing a line, maybe, but he owes me.

            Julia laughs, her voice strained. “You didn’t know?”

            I shake my head. My stomach twists at the thought of Tom sitting in my corner office. I hated that office and everything it represented. But it was mine. It feels like betrayal, and tears sting my eyes. It’s a ridiculous reaction—why shouldn’t he get the job? Better him than some other asshole. After all, he doesn’t know the sacrifices I’ve made for his safety. Cindy isn’t a consequence of his actions—she’s me, she is my responsibility. Yet still it rankles, knowing Tom has inherited what I’ve lost.

            Meanwhile, Julia leans her head to one side, watching me. “God, that must sting,” she muses. “You beat him out for the role last year, didn’t you? That pissed him off, really pissed him off that you went for the job. Did you know that? He gave up and dropped out in the end. And now he’s got the top job and fancy title and you—” she indicated my feminised form with a sweep of her hand. “Push up bra and lip gloss and sir, can I help you, sir?” She mocks my voice, then grimaces, massaging her temples between forefingers.

            I barely hear her goading because it does sting, but also because I hadn’t known he’d taken it badly, losing out on the job to me. Disappointed, sure, but angry? May the best man win, we joked. Grabbed pints after each successive stage of interviews. He never told me he’d dropped out of the final round. I’d assumed he got knocked out, fair and square.

            She sighs, a contemplative note entering her voice. “I always wondered why he brought me to that pub to meet you.” She glances askance at me. I keep my features impassive, and she returns her attention to outside. “He knew you well enough to predict what might happen. Did he want me to go with you? But then, later, he was totally open about how he’d always resented the fact I chose you over him, back at the start of it all. Maybe he was testing me.

            “Typical, isn’t it? He said he resented me—not you. Guys always blame the girl. But even then, though he never said it, I think he resented you, too, for so often stealing the girl away from him, even if—you know—he kept enabling you to be such a dickwad. I don’t know; I always got the impression that at some level, he was happy to pick up your sloppy seconds.

            “Except, that’s not what happened that night, that horrible night you abandoned me. No, because after you left, something changed. He was—kind. He stayed with me the next day. Sat with me through the tears. Checked up on me the day after, and the one after that.”

            Julia’s smooths down her hair—finds it cut short—and absently closes her hand around what is not longer there. “You have no idea how much it hurts,” she says. “How much it tears a piece of you away, being treated that way.”

            She glances over her shoulder at me, before returning her gaze outside. “Or maybe you do, now” she says, her voice soft. “Which makes what you—what he, David did all the crueler. You told me you loved someone, once, and they died and some part of you died with them, went to a place where you can never get it back. Well, that’s what David did to me. When he left, he took some part of me with him, and I never got it back.

            “And I’ve tried; God, how I’ve tried. These past months together, it’s obvious now, isn’t it? The whole time, I’ve been trying to retrieve that piece of me you stole all those years ago, by whatever means necessary.

            “And so, earlier tonight when you asked how I could be so cruel, knowing how much it hurt? It was easy, Cindy. I needed to know David understood what he did to me. And not in some academic, rational way; he had to feel it, and make my pain part of himself. And yes, I’m sorry you’ve had to bear the worst of it but David’s still part of you and I think he always will be.” She turns fully back to me now and fixes me with a glare that is both angry and sad and resentful and desperate.

            “And you do, don’t you?” she says. “Understand now, how much I hurt, how much you hurt me.”

            I nod.

            “Because you’ve felt what I felt that night.”

            And because she expects it, I nod again, blinking against tears and memory.

            “Good.” But the way she says it doesn’t sound ‘good’ at all. It takes a moment for her to recover, to grimace and swallow down the bile before she continues. “Anyway. Tom. Like I said, we kept in touch and, well, you know, we’d meet face to face every now and then.

            “It was weird. I knew from the stories that he told me that you both carried on as before, cruising bars and picking up girls, all that frat-boy bullshit; but he was never like that with me. We never talked about David. That got easier over time. At first, I wanted—needed—to know what David was doing, fantasised that he missed me or that his life fell apart without me in it. Clearly, that’s not what happened, and Tom refused to talk about him. But David was always there in the background, like an indelible shit stain on panties you can’t quite scrub out. Eventually I stopped asking.

            “And yes, Tom and I fucked. First time was probably about a year after you dumped me. After that, I don’t know, maybe once a year or so? When he was in town, or if I passed through his neck of the woods.”

            My stomach lurches a little, though I don’t know why. “Good for you,” I say.

            “I wasn’t asking for your fucking blessing!” She scowls, then softens. “And yes, he was good for me.”

            I raise an eyebrow.

            “Christ, fine!” She shakes her head. “Yes, and I hate to say it—God, I really do—as you know, he’s—how to put it—generously endowed? Tom’s as well hung as any man I’ve been with.” Her eyes glint maliciously. “More than a mouthful, right?” she adds, and smirks, but I remain silent.

            “Getting fucked by a guy like that? It’s a hell of a lot of fun sometimes, right? Getting filled, totally stuffed by a cock, riding that kind of meat with your legs wrapped tight, ankles locked around his torso and totally giving yourself…?” She bites her lip. “Sometimes, that’s just what a girl wants. But—” and here she sighs, clearly regretting it even as she says it, “Tom? He was never as good in the sack as David was. Not even close.

            “Tom’s always a bit too eager, a little too selfish, too rough on the tits. Not much of a talker, either. Getting pounded by him is great, when you’re in the mood for that kind of thing but….” She groans. “David—fuck—he was such an arrogant dickhead, but in bed—I’d never felt it like that with anyone else. It’s like he could read my body like a musical score and knew just what to do to make me sing. I’ve never cum so hard, or so often, or so easily; he always just seemed to know what to say and do, how to touch me, how far to push me and when to pull back, how to….”

            Julia passed a hand across her face, and her eyes sparkled with tears, and it takes me a moment to realise she’s nearly crying with frustration.

            “We had it so good!” She spits the words at me. She is angry. She nearly shakes with the sense of what was lost. “Can’t you see that? Then, and now. The sex, and everything else, too?” For a second, it looks like she’s going to punch me, or some other act of violence, but when she reaches for me, her hand instead gently cups the side of my head. She strokes my hair, trails her fingers along the side of my face, and holds my chin tenderly. Her smile is weak and watery. “Wasn’t that enough for you?”

            I don’t answer her.

            She sighs and pulls her hand back. “No, I guess not. Because you left me. And even after you came back—you went off again, and came back with—”

            With a wave of her hand, she indicates my groin.

            “But even after that—I thought—honestly, in my mind, everything was going fine. It was hard work at first. But I grew to love having you around. Especially when we started the weekend stuff. Seeing you in that maid’s outfit was delightful, especially once I got over the guilt. I miss the maid, you know. And being in total control of you like that—of your pleasure, but also mine—I didn’t know that about myself—and you… needing me, that was… exquisite.

            “You seemed onboard with it all, too. Again and again, I gave you the option to leave. Inside, part of me desperately hoped you—would, but also that you wouldn’t and—you stayed, some part of you must have loved it all, too, right?”

            The way she looks at me is so eager and anxious that I nearly soften, but I don’t. My face remains impassive as I wait for her to continue.

            “Fine. But I genuinely thought we could keep things going like that indefinitely—and I know, that’s insane and obviously we couldn’t but… why not? For a short time, a few short weeks, it all felt delightfully perfect, you and me and David buried deep down in there somewhere. Those final days, especially, with the training, I saw the changes, the softening edges and the shape of this new woman emerging that I helped create. I felt… invested in this person you were becoming.

            “I truly believed—and still do—the training was for your own good. You were slipping up; David was peeking through the cracks in the makeup. Again and again, you told me that the danger to you was real, the threat a genuine risk to your life. I didn’t want you getting caught.”

            She hesitates. “I didn’t want to lose you again.” Her voice catches in her throat.

            “And then…. Tom showed up, and—

            “My job went to shit, and—

            “I was angry, so—angry, and—”

            “You hurt me the same way I hurt you,” I say.

            She nods.

            “And so lost me for good.”

            She flinches.

            “And I lost you, too.” There’s sadness in my voice, and bitterness, too. “What happened that night, there’s no coming back from, Julia.”

            She knows this, of course. When I asked her to my funeral, it wasn’t just to say goodbye to David Saunders. Everything said throughout the long night, and all our stories have led to burying whatever was or could have been between Julia and me.

            Tears gather in my eyes, and this surprises me, but there they are, hot and heavy and I feel them dribble down my cheeks, my makeup runs and my lip quivers. I realise too late that perhaps I really do love this damaged woman, this woman that I damaged; perhaps it’s because she’s damaged and because it’s my fault that I feel so strongly for her. She is strong, and wonderful and horrible, and after tonight I will no longer see her again.

            This is a funeral, after all. You can’t have a funeral without loss and without burying something. After tonight, I’ll bury deep whatever feelings I may have for Julia, just as David Saunders must be dead to her.

            There’s nothing to be gained by delaying this any further.

            “Tell me the rest of the story,” I say.