I beamed. His mood had lifted a little but he seemed preoccupied.
“You seem a bit tense,” I stood up and walked to his side of the table. It was just the two of us at the gigantic dining room table. I placed my hands on his shoulders and leaned down to whisper in his ear, “How about you grab a shower and meet me in the bedroom and I give you a full body massage? Then maybe we can play?”
He smirked, “I’d love to, baby, but I have a conference call in…” he glanced at his phone, “Five minutes ago. Shit. Rain check?”
“Sure,” I deflated. I leaned over to clear his plate. He pulled me down onto his lap and claimed my mouth with his, “Dinner was delish, baby. I can’t wait for dessert. Half an hour, hour tops, okay? I’ll try to keep Saturday nights and Sundays as free as I can going forward.” He planted a kiss on me, then lifted me off his lap and then swatted my bottom playfully.
I chewed my lower lip and gave him a heated stare. He returned it.
“What flavor tonight, Tommy?” I asked, looking as seductively as I could muster.
“Mmm,” he eyed me up and down, “Neapolitan?”
I smiled and gave him a nod. A little vanilla, a little strawberry, and a little chocolate. Sounded good to me. I cleared the table as he strode off toward his office.
Tommy
“Okay,” I told her, “You’re gonna put me to sleep.” She was sitting on my rear, massaging my back with sweet smelling oil. I was on the bed, a towel around my waist.
“Maybe you need to sleep,” she told me, her lips against the ridge of my ear.
“But I have plans for us.”
“Neapolitan plans?” she murmured.
I laughed, “We need to talk first, baby. Switch.”
She got off me and lay beside me on her belly. I climbed onto her backside and kneeled, not putting my full weight on her, and lifted her t-shirt and pulled it off her, leaving her in just a pair of Daisy Duke-like jean shorts and her bra. It was a sexy satin red one. I snapped the band and she jerked and then giggled shyly but her eyes were heated. I kissed her shoulder and then wiped oil from my own over-oiled shoulders, transferring it to her body working it in to her back and her shoulders. She let out a little moan that went straight to my groin. I ignored what that moan made me wanna do; I needed to talk to her, not let myself get distracted again. The best way to do it was probably to stop touching her so I could stop thinking about getting inside of her and just play the recording.
I wiped my hand on the towel beside her, reached for my phone, which was on the night stand and put it beside her head,
“Listen.” I said and planted a kiss on her shoulder, “Then we’ll talk. We have to talk about this and then we have other shit to discuss. It’s gonna to be a lot. But it’s important. Okay? I didn’t want to come to you with this before I had proof but I’m at a dead end and need info from you before I can go further.”
She nodded and chewed her cheek. I brushed her hair behind her ear with my fingertips, kissed her temple, and then I pressed play on the recording while I continued to gently massage her shoulders and then moved down to her legs as the recording played what Greg O’Connor said to me outside the hospital when Tia had the allergic reaction. She tensed up almost immediately, upon hearing her father’s voice, but I kept massaging gently.
“…known your family for years. I’ve wanted to be on better terms, I tried to patch things up with Tom. He just didn’t wanna know me because Lita chose me over him, you see. And he always had this grudge about that. He told me one night out of the blue in a dark alley when he turned up after a poker game I was in that he’d have her back and that if he couldn’t have her, he’d make sure I didn’t either. He was in love with her, had been since they were kids, but he was best friends and business partners with her older brother, someone even more connected than he was, so she was off limits. A few years after your mum died and Lita’s brother died he tried to hook up with her but she broke up with him a few months later and when she met me she told me her ex was crazy possessive, psycho. She started to see me on the rebound, probably, but got pregnant so we got married before we really knew each other. I loved her, though. She was amazing. He said Tia should’ve been his. If we hadn’t had Tia he wouldn’t have lost Lita. I was scared he was gonna hurt Tia. He was a bad motherfucker and I was afraid for my life, too. I tried to befriend him, started working on one of the crews down in the junction district of town, but when he found out about it, he canned me. All this shit kept happening to me and it was like he was out to destroy me. I know he was behind a lot of it.
Then he left us alone for a few years. But me and Lita had a huge blow-up about my gambling and partying and she took my daughter and left. But she came back a few days later and wouldn’t say why. I think she’d gone back to him but changed her mind. Or maybe he’d kidnapped her and she got away. She wouldn’t tell me. He turned up drunk and stormed into my apartment and told us if she didn’t leave with him, he was taking Tia instead. Started screaming in my face telling me to pick whether I wanted to keep my wife or my daughter. Lita pleaded with him but he pointed a gun at me and finally took Tia, put her in his car. Lita tried to change his mind, go with him, but he said it was too late. Tia got so upset that he let her come back a few hours later but he told me it wasn’t over. Lita killed herself a few weeks later. Your father showed at the funeral and told me he’d be back for Tia someday. That I took from him so he’d take from me. Hinted that he was responsible for Lita’s death; I carried that shit around for years. Always watching my back, always wondering if she really killed herself. I was fucked up. I know it affected my relationship with my daughter. I just, I dunno, malfunctioned. But I want a relationship with her. I thought maybe you and I could be friends. I could work for you. See my daughter, be in her life, help you with the business. We’ll be family after you get married. Maybe Tom will finally let it all go now. Think about it, will ya do that for me?”
I turned it off and climbed off her and got into a pair of boxers. She stayed still. I gave her a minute and then asked, “Do you think your mother was depressed before she died?”
“Yeah,” she said softly.
“Long before or for just a little bit.”
“Long, I think.”
“Do you remember my father taking you out of your apartment?” I asked her. She was quiet for a minute. This was key.
“I do.” She said eventually. She climbed up onto her knees and then twisted and planted herself down be
side me and re-fastened her bra and then reached for her t-shirt.
I passed her a bottle of water from the nightstand and she took it with trembling hands.
“I knew he was familiar,” she said, pointedly, “I knew when I met him that he was familiar. But I couldn’t place it. Then when I found that picture I gave you I knew he was really familiar beyond the picture but still didn’t know from where. When I heard that recording, when I heard it I saw it playing like a movie in my head. I remember him putting me in his car and I was crying and crying and he tried to settle me down and told me he’d buy me a pony, build me a dollhouse, take me to Disney World. He said he’d give me anything I wanted. I wouldn’t stop crying for my Mom and finally after he drove around for a little while he took me back. Maybe I blocked it out. I don’t know. If it was just before she died maybe I blocked it out.”
I nodded, “Do you remember you and your Mother being kidnapped or being with my father somewhere for a few days?”