The Dirty South

  “Except it never did.”

  I shake my head, my heart heavy. With every word I tell her, I feel the little chink in my perfect world getting bigger and bigger.

  “But everything else in our relationship is so perfect… I mean, is it really that big a deal? It’s just sex, right?” I raise my eyes to hers.

  Stacia fixes me with a serious look. “I don’t know. You tell me.”

  I don’t know what to say, because deep down I know that it isn’t just sex. “I guess... I assumed we would get to that stage someday, way down the road after being married for years and years and having kids. But not now. Not already. I’m not even twenty-five yet!”

  “Have you talked to him about it?”

  “Yeah… of course I have. He just says that his sex drive isn’t as high as it used to be and that he loves me just as much, and it shouldn’t matter.”

  “So he doesn’t think it’s a problem?”

  I shake my head. “Says he’s comfortable this way.”

  Stacia presses her lips together and stares out the window for several long moments before glancing back at me. “Do you think he’s—”

  I know what she’s thinking just by looking at her face.

  “Cheating?” I shake my head. “That’s the weirdest part… I really don’t. Maybe I’m being naïve or stupid, but I don’t feel like there’s another girl in the picture at all.”

  “Just no passionate kisses or hot sex.”

  “Yeah.”

  She shakes her head. “I dunno, that’s tough. On the one hand you guys are perfect for each other…”

  I’m trying not to cry, but it’s hard. How do I explain to her that what I just said isn’t exactly true? That it’s more than just the lack of sex and making out… it’s something deeper, almost unquantifiable? I can’t put my finger on it, but it just feels off—like some invisible wall between us, and I don’t know where it came from or how to get through it.

  “Have you tried couples counseling?”

  I shake my head again. “I mentioned it once and he freaked. Said no way would he ever talk about his private life with a stranger. And besides, he thinks we’re fine.”

  “Can you live with that?”

  I put my head in my hands and rub my temples. “I don’t know… I truly don’t know. I’m not some crazy nympho or anything… not by a long shot. But I’m afraid that if my needs aren’t being met, someday I’ll start looking somewhere else. And I don’t want to be that type of person.”

  “But you are human, and you do have needs, emotional and physical. To deny that is stupid.”

  “What do I do?” I whisper. “I care about Brandon so much. But there’s something missing. Something that should be there. And it’s not something you can force or fake. It’s either there or it’s not.”

  Stacia is quiet for a minute. Then her eyes flash. “I have an idea…” She jumps off the bed and retreats into her closet. I hear the sounds of a box opening, and a few moments later she emerges holding a small, pink bag.

  “Here,” she says, holding it out to me. “I bought this at Trashy Lingerie last month and never wore it. Any man who sees it will melt into a puddle, or he’s not human. And it’ll look a thousand times better on you than me anyways with your wicked curves.”

  Skeptically, I take the bag and reach my hand inside. I stare at the red and black lace bra and garter set, and look back at her.

  “What am I supposed to do with this exactly?”

  She smiles mischievously. “What do you think? Seduce the hell out of him! Law school is over. No more excuses. Maybe you guys just fell into a rut and need to shake it up a bit. Get out of your heads and get away from being you for a moment. Has he ever seen you in anything like this?”

  “No,” I admit, and wonder if her words might have some truth to them. Is that what the problem is? Am I not sexy enough? Have I not been doing enough to get his attention, or to keep it for that matter? Was I just taking it for granted that me being a willing and ready female would be enough for a man, my fiancé, to want to ravage me?

  “This is perfect,” she says, her eyes lighting up even more. “You have a nice buzz going on right now, so your inhibitions are down. And for some reason, you’re really rocking the sexy bedhead today. And your tan looks fabulous. Put this on, go surprise him, and seduce the hell out of him. Tie him up and violate him with whips and chains and feathers if you have to. Don’t take no for an answer.”

  I look at the flimsy piece of delicate lace and actually start to seriously consider her idea. Is it really that simple to put the spark back? It was good between us at one time… do we just need a little unexpected spice to get things moving again?

  “What’s Brandon doing tonight?” Stacia asks.

  I hold up the bra and examine it. My chest is larger than Stacia’s, but the fabric seems quite stretchy with a lot of give. “Tennis and then dinner with Christian,” I murmur. “Then afterwards he’s setting up his office in the condo and prepping for our final move.”

  She smiles. “Perfect. So he’ll be there all night?”

  I shrug. “Yeah. He has most of his clothes and stuff there already.”

  She puts her hands on her hips and stands over me. “Okay, you definitely need to go over there and make this happen.”

  “But it’s our last night together as roomies before you leave! Besides, he’s not planning on seeing me ‘til tomor—”

  “Even better! Catch him off guard, rewrite your script, shake things up, and remember… don’t take no for an answer!”

  *****

  Thirty minutes later I’m clenching the steering wheel of my new Lexus IS convertible, a graduation gift from my parents, and trying not to scratch at the itchy lace beneath the tight black dress Stacia insisted I wear. How I let her talk me into this I’ll never know. It must’ve been the wine. But now my nerves have sobered me up, and I cautiously navigate the side streets of our Newport Beach neighborhood to Brandon’s and my new condo. It’s less than ten minutes away, but the drive feels like ten seconds as I run through all sorts of scenarios in my head. Will this actually work? Will he laugh at me? Or reject me outright? I just hope that he doesn’t get mad at me.

  I catch myself and inhale sharply. Here I am afraid that my fiancé will be upset with me or mock me for trying to make love to him.

  I let out a long, low breath. That’s not good.

  Not good at all.

  Chapter 2.

  Five weeks later…

  Even the booming voice of self-help guru Tony Robbins isn’t enough to distract me from my haunting thoughts, despite my having turned up the radio nearly as loud as it will go. Almost 2500 miles from Newport Beach, and I feel like my ghosts are sitting in the back seat, taunting me as I drive further and further away from the nightmare I left behind.

  “You are now at a crossroads,” his deep voice intones. “This is your opportunity to make the most important decision of your life. Forget your past. Who are you now? Who have you decided you really are now? Don't think about who you have been. Who are you now? Who have you decided to become? Make this decision consciously. Make it carefully. Make it powerfully.”

  A sarcastic chuckle escapes me. “Who am I now, Tony? Well, that’s the million dollar question right there, isn’t it.”

  Then I spot the sign for my final destination in this grueling three and a half day drive. Sweet Oak, South Carolina – 10 miles.

  I cringe, and force myself to focus on the darkening road ahead. The straight, wide freeways have long since given way to narrow, two-lane country highways that twist and turn. And although they are quite beautiful in the daytime, they are considerably less fun to navigate now that night has fallen. If it wasn’t for my GPS telling me where to go, I would’ve missed half my exits by now. Seriously, what does this place have against brightly-lit street signs? Are people not expected to drive at night?

  The knot that’s been growing in the pit of my stomach since leaving Georgia is getting
bigger, and I’m finding it harder to breathe.

  What the hell am I doing out here!? Am I insane? Everything has been so crazy since the night I discovered the truth about Brandon and realized that our life together was forever destroyed, with no possible hope for salvation. In one devastating moment everything was gone, just like that. The house of lies and deceit had come tumbling down, crushing everything, including me, beneath it.

  So I did the only thing I could do. Got the hell out of there.

  But where to go? What to do?

  My stuff was already all packed up, so I had it sent to a storage unit in San Diego. For a while I hid out at my mom’s favorite spa, then crashed at my cousin’s in Phoenix for a few weeks. But obviously I needed a longer-term plan. When my dad told me he’d made arrangements for me to go work with his old college buddy, someone who was looking to hire a recent law school grad, I jumped without thinking twice. Anything to escape my nightmare and get as far away from Brandon as I possibly could. The further, the better.

  Even now, I can see it clearly— as if I could ever get the images from my mind no matter how hard I try. Hearing the strange noises… walking in and seeing Brandon’s muscular, nude body glistening with sweat as he’s completely caught up in the throes of wild, uninhibited sex… his grunts, animalistic and guttural, unlike anything I’d ever heard when he and I were together.

  But the worst part was seeing the expression on his face— so passionate and intense, so primal… so real. I’d never seen him look like that. Ever.

  And just like that, I realized the last eight years had been a complete lie. All of it. And nothing could ever be the same again. I had no choice but to leave. Because, like an idiot, I’d put all my eggs in one basket. That perfect basket that was loving and marrying Brandon Hartford, being his perfect wife, and having a perfect life working alongside him at his father’s former law firm in Los Angeles.

  And then that perfect basket had exploded to smithereens and annihilated my perfect life until it was perfectly fucked up beyond recognition. Escape not only seemed the smartest choice, it was my only choice. Stacia was busy in New York. My parents were traveling through Europe. I had no one to turn to, and nowhere else to go.

  But now that I’m almost here, I really don’t know what the hell I was thinking.

  “It’ll be fine, everything will be okay,” I murmur to myself, as I shake my head and try to clear the persistent memories from my mind. Memories of Brandon. Of him finally seeing me. Of the shock… the screaming and yelling… the tears… the desperate begging… his hands around my throat, squeezing…

  I close my eyes and shake my head again, and when I look back at the road two glowing eyes are staring right at me, reflecting in my headlights.

  “NO!”

  The shadow of a massive beast emerges from the darkness, and without thinking I slam on the brakes and jerk the wheel hard to the right, bracing myself for the impact.

  The car skids and suddenly slams to a halt. My head whips forward, then back again violently as something punches me in the face… hard, crushing my body and stealing my air before quickly deflating with an evil-sounding hiss.

  Terror and adrenaline and who knows what other emotions flood through me with a horrifying rush. I can’t even form a coherent thought. I just sit there, totally in shock, for I don’t know how long… my car a pile of twisted and broken metal around me.

  Oh my God… Oh my God… Oh my God…

  I gasp, trying to catch my breath. My brain is on pause, frozen, unable to comprehend what just happened, and I’m scared to death the damage to my body is far worse than it seems to be… that the flood of adrenaline is just numbing the pain somehow. I’m terrified I’ll look down and see a spike sticking through my side or half my leg missing.

  “Oh, God… Oh, God… Oh please, God, let me be okay,” I plead, as I carefully start to feel for injuries. My face feels like it’s been hit with a baseball bat from the initial smack of the airbag, and some blood is coming from my lips. But right now that’s the only place that actually hurts.

  I utter a small cry of relief as I realize that there are no broken bones or serious injuries. It looks like the airbag cushioned the impact of the collision with the small oak tree. I’m okay… Thank God.

  I remain in my seat for several more moments until I can get my breathing back under control. My heart is still racing furiously, and my hand trembles as I reach out to open the door. I have to lean into it and give it a hard push, but finally it gives way with a loud screech of metal grinding on metal.

  After taking several shaky steps, I turn to survey the damage and let out another groan. The whole front end of the Lexus is completely smashed, and the one working headlight is shining haphazardly off into the surrounding forest.

  Holy hell…

  A loud rustling in the nearby trees, followed by a soft howl in the distance, quickly brings me back to reality. It suddenly dawns on me that I’m all alone in the dark, in the middle of God only knows where, with the sounds of ‘nature’ all around me. And I haven’t seen another car –or any signs of life for that matter – in over half an hour.

  Despite the warm summer air, a chill passes over me. I quickly dive back inside the car and lock the doors, and say a silent prayer as I search for my cell phone. Please, let there be reception out here!

  One bar.

  Tenuous, but after the patches of no service that have plagued me since west Georgia, I’ll take it.

  I push the keypad, and a woman picks up on the first ring. “Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?”

  “Yes, hi—” I let out a long breath. “I’ve been in an accident. I just crashed my car into a tree.”

  “Oh no! You all right, honey? You need an ambulance?”

  Honey? “Um... I-I think I’m okay. No... no ambulance. It’s just the front of my car is crushed pretty badly, and I don’t think I can drive it… and I’m out here all alone.”

  “Oh, good. Well at least no one’s hurt, that’s really the important thing. Where’re you at? I’ll send Dale right out to check on you.”

  I glance around, ignoring the throbbing around my mouth which becomes worse when I talk. “I-I’m not exactly sure. I went off the road on the 327 about 10 miles away from the Sweet Oak exit.”

  “Were you going north or south?”

  “Uh…south.”

  “Okay, sugar, you just sit tight. I’ll get Dale on out to you right quick. And from the sounds of it, you’re gonna need Colton and his boys too, so I’ll just go ahead and give them a holler.” There’s a short pause. “You’re in luck,” she continues. “Looks like they’re still at the shop… I see some lights on. Let me go over and give ‘em a nudge.”

  Frowning, I hold the phone out and study it for a moment before returning it to my ear. “This is nine-one-one, right?”

  The woman laughs, a deep hearty sound. “Sure thing, sweetie. You expecting someone else?”

  I shake my head. “No… I guess you just don’t seem like a normal operator is all.”

  The woman laughs again, and it’s comforting in a way I can only imagine a warm, loving mother would sound. “Well, I don’t know what to say to that,” she says. “I’m walking over to the Grease Monkey right now to get you a tow, and I’ve dispatched Dale and he’s on his way. Would you like to stay on the line with me until he gets there?”

  “Who’s Dale?”

  “He’s the deputy. He’ll take care of you.”

  Nodding, I gulp hard as the tears threaten. So much for a fresh beginning. If this is the way my new life is starting off, I’m really screwed.

  I close my eyes. “Thank you,” I whisper. “I’d like it a lot if you’d talk with me until he arrives.”

  “Of course, hon’… what’s your name?”

  “Cady… Cady St. Claire.”

  “Nice to meet you, Cady. I’m Maple Dewane.”

  “Maple?”

  “Like the syrup, honey.” She chuckles again and I smile,
despite my broken lip. “So where were you headed… on your way out to Charleston for the weekend, maybe?”

  I shake my head again and gaze out over the crumpled remains of the hood of the car. I was so close…and I totally screw up with ten stinking miles to go…

  “Actually, I’m headed to Sweet Oak. I drove out here from Orange County, California. I graduated law school a few weeks ago, and now I’m planning on staying for a bit to work at the Sheldon Jackson Law Firm.”

  “Oh, wow, a lawyer!”

  When Maple makes some impressed noises and starts gushing, I close my eyes and shake my head. Having to come out here to work for a no-name law firm in the middle of nowhere to escape my epic disaster life is the lowest of the low. More salt in my already open and festering wounds. Humiliating. Desperate. Pathetic.

  Certainly not impressive.

  “That’s so great!” Maple continues. “Ol’ Sheldon’s getting on in years. Being the only lawyer in Sweet Oak, he could use some help.”

  “He’s the only lawyer here?”

  “Well, sure. Don’t have the need for too many. He takes care of all the basics. Course there’s plenty in the other nearby towns, and we got the big wigs over in Savannah if you need something important. But Sheldon’s been taking care of the folks around here since I was little.”

  “You’ve always lived out here?”

  “Yup, was born here and am gonna die here. Sweet Oak is my home. I’ll never leave, and never wanted to.”

  Home. What does that even really mean? To me it’s always been nothing more than the place I get my mail and have my belongings. Where I sleep. It’s never been a word of much significance, other than the numbers and names I fill out on forms.

  But the way Maple says it, it’s something else entirely. Home is part of her essence, her identity, her soul. I’ve never had that… a connection to a place so deep I never wanted to leave. To feel a part of something so strongly… to feel in such a profound way that I belong.