Generational Sins (19 page)

We both knew that planning a wedding would not be a strain for my mother, with or without Kat's help. His words were a threat against her - mess with me and I'll mess up your mother.

His voice was hard and cold. It brought back memories of every time he'd ever overpowered one of my decisions either by threats or by physical action. My life would never be my own as long as he was near me. I had no choice. I had to obey him.

"Of course not, father," I said softly. "Forgive me. I'll let you know as soon as Kat accepts my proposal."

I hung up. How was I ever going to explain this to Kat? She would be so disappointed in me.

The students were now leaving the school and flooding into the other parking lots. Kat would be out soon. I looked up at my rear view mirror. There was a Dairy Queen across the street from the school. I made a split second decision to get her one of those new Girl Scout Cookie Blizzards they were advertising. She had mentioned wanting to try one the other day. Bad news was always easier to take with ice cream. Right?

I was walking back across the street, a blizzard in each hand, when she came out of the building. Just the sight of her made my heart ache. She was so beautiful. She spotted my car and looked around for me. Her face lit up when she saw me and the ice cream in my hands.

We sat on the tailgate of her truck, in the parking lot and ate our Blizzards. I told her about both conversations with my parents.

She listened quietly until I was finished and then she spoke up.

"Well, do you think we can lie to him?" she asked. "I could keep working, but we could tell him I resigned."

"I doubt that would work. You know how thorough my father is, he's likely to call again to check."

"Yeah." I watched her pink tongue dart out to lick her spoon while she thought. "Well, I am probably going to be leaving at the end of the year anyway, maybe I should just resign early."

"That makes us solely dependent upon him for an income, Kat."

"I know, but maybe I could tutor on the side or something for a little extra money."

"Yeah, but it wouldn't cover the rent, and my father would know that we were hiding things from him if I started paying the rent for our house out of my account."

"Well he'll expect you to pay for my housing anyway won't he?"

"He expects you to live with me."

"Gosh this is complicated." She rubbed absently at her temple.

A man in a blue suit was exiting the building.

"Want to meet my boss?" she asked.

"Yeah, I guess."

"Dr. Ross?" She hopped down off the tailgate. "I'd like you to meet my boyfriend David Paulson."

He crossed the lot to us, and I held out my hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you. Kat speaks very highly of you."

He shook my outstretched hand. "You as well, thank you."

"I also wanted to apologize for the phone call that you received earlier today. My younger brother thought it would be an amusing prank to stir up trouble in Kat's life. I've informed him that we did not find it funny." The lie rolled right off my tongue. It was a plausible enough explanation for now.

"I see," he said. "Thank you for the explanation. It gave me quite a scare to think we might lose our talented Ms. Lake."

Kat blushed beside me.

"Have a good night, Kat," he said as he walked away to his car.

Kat gave me a relieved look and went back to her ice cream. What a day.

I helped David clean up the mess all over the stove, and we somehow managed to salvage dinner. He hadn't added the pasta yet, so thankfully it wasn't a part of the over-boiled mess.

I finished my glass of wine and David poured me another. We were probably going to need more than one bottle to get through this night.

His father had seriously messed him up. If I ever met the man, I was likely to castrate him. David was denying that his father was sexually abusing his mother, but I was sure that was the case. I was also wondering if he had sexually abused David himself. David hadn't mentioned it, but he wasn't likely to. No young man cares to admit that his father raped him, but that didn't mean that it didn't happen.

He needed to see a therapist. I didn't think it was my place to make such a recommendation at this time, but I would definitely recommend it at some point in the future. He was clearly terrified of his father, and he was going to need to learn to let go of that fear. If he didn't, it would haunt him for the rest of his life. There was no way that he could overcome this without help.

We discussed lighter topics for a while – our upcoming assignments, our friends – but the air remained heavy around us. We ate in near silence knowing that food was serving as a temporary reprieve.

After the dishes were settled in the dishwasher, and the second bottle of wine had been uncorked, we sat together on the living room couch. This couch already had so many memories. I was quite fond of this house, and I wondered briefly if David would inherit it some day.

"Ready for round two?" I asked, breaking the awkward silence.

"No," he answered, "but I suppose I haven't any choice."

"There is always a choice, David. If it's too much for you right now, I will wait."

"No, I want it all out in the open," he said surely. He set his wine down and pulled me into his arms. I wasn't sure if he was trying to comfort me or use me for his own comfort, but I didn't really care either way.

"Kat, I've known for a while now that something wasn't right about my father's perspective of things, but he has a large amount of influence in my life. He pays for my education, my housing, everything. He also has a tremendous amount of influence over my mother, whom I care very deeply about. In my family, Kat, it is best to not make waves. Can you understand that?"

"Of course, David, but not making waves and outright lying to your father are not exactly the same thing."

"I know, and I don't like it any more than you do, but I can't tell him about you. I just can't. Maybe somewhere further down the line, if we stay together, but not now. The only way that I can handle this right now is to lie to him. That's the safest for everyone involved."

"What happens when you go home for the summer, David? Are you going home for the summer? Will he expect you to bring girls home on the weekends?"

"I don't know what to do for the summer. I had planned to go home, but now I would rather stay here. Are you going home to Montana?"

He'd clearly avoided half of my questions. "Yes, I'm going home for the summer to Montanna."

"Well, maybe I could find a reason to come out west so that we could be together."

I thought about that for a moment. I would like to be able to spend the summer with David, but that made it seem like we were really getting ahead of ourselves. Our relationship was still new, and even though I was quite sure that I loved him already, I wasn't so sure that we should rush things.

"I'm not sure we're ready for that. I mean, I would love to have you near me for the summer, but that means that you would probably have to meet my dad, and I don't know what you would do out there. Montana is really boring."

"Let's not worry about it yet. I'll look into some options, and we'll see how it goes. Even if I don't go out there, my father will not expect me to bring women home. He'll expect me to rent a hotel room or something anyway. It's sort of an unspoken rule that you don't bring women home unless you intend to keep them around a while."

"Okay."

"Don't worry, Kat, I've promised you that I'm done sleeping around, and I mean it. I only want to be with you."

"Okay." I tried to make my voice sound confident. It wasn't that I didn't trust him. I just didn't trust his father to not get him into an unavoidable bad situation.

He tilted my face up to his and gently kissed my lips. "Thank you for trusting me, Kat."

I just nodded. I wasn't sure I could control my voice if I spoke.

"I know that I'm asking a lot of you," he continued, "but I just need time. My life is complicated, in some ways, and I can't even explain some of it to you, but I really do appreciate your patience with me."

"I'll be here as long as you need me."

"So you want to stay with me? Despite everything that I just told you? You want to be my submissive, and my girlfriend?"

"For as long as you'll have me, in any way that you want me. You're a good man, David, and you're learning to be an incredible Dom. I would be proud to belong to you."

"So you would accept my collar? If I gave you one?"

"Without a moment's hesitation."

I had wondered about that. This was the second time he had mentioned collaring me. I'd never before experienced a literal collar and I was curious to know what David would choose. It didn't seem likely to me that he would be into thick leathers or traditional collars, but he wanted to mark me in some way, display to the world that I belonged to him. I was all for that idea. I had already submitted myself to him, but it would be nice to make it official in some way.

His hands drifted to the inside of my thighs. He was touching me gently, slowly, but with increasing pressure. It seemed as if our conversation was over for the night.

"Do you want to go back upstairs?" I asked.

"No, Kat, I want to try something." There was a nervousness in his voice that I'd not heard before. This was completely unlike the self-assured Dom I'd been with hours ago. This was the voice of an insecure child asking for comfort.

"What's that?"

"Will you, I mean, not as my submissive... I've never..."

He seemed so vulnerable in that moment, but by the tone of his voice and the insistence in his hands I knew what he wanted. He wanted to make love to me, not as my Dom, not as the womanizer he once was, but as my lover.

We were moving into uncharted emotional waters, but I understood what he wanted, and I wanted it too. I silenced him with a kiss to let him know that I understood.

We made love on the couch, the same couch where we'd begun our D/s relationship. He stripped off his pants, and I rode him, still dressed in his shirt. His hands pushed the starched material up over my hips as he steadied me. It was an odd transfer of power, me dressed while he was naked, but dressed only in his shirt. It was oddly symbolic of the multi-faceted relationship we pursued. It was like a visible layering of things unspoken between us.

After a while, he laid me down on my back on the cushions and rocked his hips into me gently. It was slow and sweet, but driving towards a goal nonetheless. We whispered words of love and adoration to each other as we let our bodies connect. We shared long deep kisses and sighed into each other's mouths and necks.

It was as if my very soul was altered in those extended moments. Our bodies communicated in ways that we never could. He climbed into my heart, as he delighted body, and as I climaxed around him, I confessed to him how deeply I loved him.

When we were finished, we both knew that nothing would ever be the same between us again.

I just wanted to go home and spend a quiet evening with David. I didn't want to think about the possible implications of Richard's behavior on my job. I didn't want to think about the effect that he was having on my marriage. I didn't want to think about the stress he was causing David. But of course, it was all I could think about.

David followed me home after school, and we made dinner together. Neither one of us mentioned his father or the phone call to my work, but it was like a looming presence that just wouldn't go away. Our playful discussion about the uselessness green pepper seeds wasn't fixing anything, and we both knew it.

Finally, when the fajitas were done and we were sitting next to each other at the tiny kitchen table, I couldn't take it any more.

"We can't do this, David."

"I know."

"I won't let him ruin our marriage. I love you with everything that I am, and I will not let him come between us."

"He won't. We're almost out of this. Less than a year, baby. We can make it one more year." He looked at me with those wide blue eyes, begging me to agree with him.

"What am I going to do about work?"

"Nothing, yet. I can put him off for a while."

I took a bite of my dinner so that I wouldn't have to speak. I was such a coward. We let the conversation drop and an uncomfortable silence filled the kitchen once again.

"Let's watch a movie tonight or something." David spoke first. I was glad it didn't have to be me. "I don't want to talk about it any more. I just want to spend time with you."

I agreed.

We settled into the living room, David sitting on the couch, with me on the floor between his legs. He gently ran his fingers through my hair while the television filled the silence. I rested my cheek on his thigh and wrapped my arms around his calves. I loved sitting like this. It was a very secure position for me. I thought back to early in our relationship. It took a long time for David to be comfortable with my sitting at his feet. He either wanted me under him or beside him, but for some reason seeing me at his feet always freaked him out. I was glad that he'd gotten over that. It was one of my favorite things that Cody had done, and it always stuck with me.