Baby Love Lite (35 page)

“
How's Layla?” she
asked.

Trey and I exchanged confused glances.

“
I named the baby Layla once
I got a hold of her. I can’t believe you would name a baby girl
your last name. You’re so much like your mama.”

“
Preston's fine. No worse
from what you obviously put her through when you had her,” I
snapped.

“
I took good care of that
baby just like I done you when you were a baby,” she
snorted.

“
Really? Why the bruises on
her bottom?"

Maggie didn’t even try to appear repentant.
“She constantly wanted to eat. I still had my milk from when I
delivered that dead baby. Yep, I kept pumping it so that I'd have
it for when I took that baby girl of yours.”

My heart was racing, my adrenaline was
pumping. We were getting down to it now. I needed to keep my calm,
no matter what. I wanted to let her talk.

“
Yeah, I figured I was owed
a baby out of the whole deal. I'd always wanted one you know?
Raising you wasn’t the same as having my own. The one that Matthew
made me abort was a girl. I saw that when she came out of me, all
bloody.”

I was starting to feel nauseous. I'd presumed
that if Maggie had undergone an abortion it had been done at a
medical clinic. Her statement had the hint of some back-alley job
done with a coat hanger. I wasn’t up for the details.

“
I believe you were trying
to explain the bruises on Preston?”

Maggie rolled her eyes as if she were already
bored with the whole topic. It was reminiscent of how she'd behaved
whenever she was faced with explaining her unacceptable behavior
while I was growing up.

“
Oh, yeah well, she
apparently wasn’t satisfied with my milk supply. She fussed the
whole time she nursed at my tit. Then five minutes after she'd
finish up, she'd puke it all back up and she’d want to latch back
onto me. So, yes, I smacked her bare ass a few times. I finally had
to make up a sugar-tit for her so she’d leave mine
alone.”

I felt Trey stiffen in anger; I felt the same
way. Maggie was continuing to rant.

“
Just like I had to smack
your bare ass when you were a baby. Same damn thing. You kept
trying to nurse from me thinking all tits had breast milk, I
suppose; always nuzzling against me and rooting for my tit like I
was your mama.”

That was my memory of skin slapping skin;
sometimes it had brought me fear and pain; other times it had made
me feel disgusted. Trey had his arm around me peering down at
me.

“
Who's Marley?” I asked
her.

I finally saw some emotion
cross over Maggie’s pale, thin face at the mention of the name.
“That’s what
he
called your mama; that was his pet name for Marla.”

“
Whose pet name?”

“
Why, your daddy’s,” she
said as if it should've been so obvious to me. “Preston Tylar,” she
stated.

I looked up at Trey; I knew that I'd been
right.

“
What can you tell me about
him, Aunt Maggie?”

I threw the ‘aunt’ in there hoping that in
some way she'd feel some connection to me that might warrant her
telling me the truth.

“
I suppose you've a right to
know the truth. Maybe I even owe you the truth, after all I've
done. I know this is it for me, Tylar. You and your handsome hubby
grab a chair and sit down here so that I can see you without
straining to look up and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Trey pulled a chair over and sat down,
pulling me onto his lap. Maggie took another sip of water and
settled back against her pillows.

“
I was three years older
than your mama; our half-brother, Matthew was seven years older
than me. My mama had borne him out of wedlock when she was just
seventeen. Then she'd met Carson Renaud and married him; he adopted
Matthew as his own. Mama had me five years after they married and
then Marla came along. They were good parents to all of us. Matthew
though, he had a wild streak in him.”

She paused as a nurse came in to check her
I.V.

“
When I was fifteen and your
mama was just twelve, our parents were killed in an automobile
accident in Meridian, Mississippi, about an hour from where we
lived. Matthew was twenty-two years old so he became our legal
guardian. He pretty much blew through the inheritance that our
parents had left, within a couple of years. I was able to finish
high school and started working as a secretary in an insurance
office in the little town where we lived. Matthew worked nights at
a cocktail lounge. We were struggling. Matthew started drinking
heavily and got some ideas on how we could make more money. He set
out to train me in the ways of pleasing men. I was a very willing
student.”

Is she saying what I think she's saying?

“
Oh, don’t look so shocked,
Tylar. It wasn’t like we were
totally
brother and sister - only
half. Matthew taught me the art of fucking and promised me that we
would earn a whole lot more money with the proper clientele. He
explained this type of clientele wasn’t in Mississippi. We moved to
New Orleans. It was just like Matthew had promised. He found me
wealthy gentlemen in prestigious positions who wanted dates. They
would wine and dine me; we would go to a fancy hotel room and spend
the night. There were weeks that I was bringing in more than $2000.
I always practiced safe sex, too.”

She paused to take a long drink of water. The
look in her eyes told me that she was reflecting back to a time
that didn’t appear to hold bad memories for her.

“
I was in love with Matthew;
at least I thought I was. We would still sleep together and make
love. He needed to make sure I was in top performance for my
‘natural calling’ as he put it. Your mama was seventeen by this
time. She'd just graduated from high school. She was naïve, just
like you. She hadn’t a clue about me and Matthew; or about me and
all of the other men. She thought I worked nights. She always had
her head buried in a book, it seemed.”

Maggie laughed and started coughing again. A
nurse came back into her room and administered some codeine to her
for the cough. She said it may make her drowsy. I was determined to
get the rest of the story before that happened.

“
Matthew was determined to
get Marla into the business of pleasing men. He said he needed to
start personally training her real soon. I didn’t want him to touch
her. I'd like to say it was because I was protective of her, but
the truth was, I was jealous. I was jealous at the thought of
Matthew fucking her - or any other woman, for that matter. He was
mine.”

She gazed over at me as if she was really
seeing me for the very first time ever. “You look just like Marla,
you know? Well, except that she had green eyes,” she stated out of
the blue staring at me.

“
I was able to stall Matthew
on the training bit with Marla. I told him that I wanted better for
her. I promised him that I'd service more clients if only he would
spare her. I then went off of my birth control pill on purpose. I
wanted him to get me pregnant. I figured if Matthew knew I was
having his child he'd forget about wanting to fuck Marla and love
me like the wife I practically was to him. He knew I always used
condoms with my clients. That was our golden rule. So when I got
pregnant he'd know the baby was mine and his. It would be our love
child.”

I laid my head against
Trey’s shoulder listening to her. I felt pity for what she'd
endured. I was sickened by the relationship she'd had with her
half-brother. How could Maggie have possibly thought it was natural
to have sex with a blood relative? Yet, she'd done that and more.
She'd fallen in love with him and wanted to be
his wife
?

“
It didn’t take me long to
get pregnant. Matthew and I generally fucked on a daily basis. I
hid it from him for as long as I could because I didn’t want him to
make me get an abortion. He finally noticed that I had a baby bump
one night when he was going down on me. I had to tell him the
truth. He was furious with me. He claimed that because we were
related the baby would be born a Mongoloid idiot. The next day he
went to a bayou gypsy and got some roots and herbs and made a nasty
brew. He forced me to drink it. Within hours, I was in excruciating
pain. I delivered a dead baby girl. She looked perfectly formed.
There wouldn’t have been anything wrong with her,” she
sobbed.

Maggie was crying now and they were real
tears. It was the first time that I'd ever seen her genuinely sad.
I wanted to reach out to her but I couldn’t bring myself to move.
Trey stroked my hair and kissed the top of my head.

“
Go on, Aunt Maggie, please.
Tell me what happened after that.”

“
I
hated
Matthew after that. I realized
what a sick bastard he was. I knew that I needed out of his sick
and perverted life. He didn’t care about anything or anyone. It was
just about the money. Naturally, I was laid up for a while after
the miscarriage. Matthew was more driven than ever to get Marla
involved as a whore in his money-making scheme. She was clueless
where men were concerned. She was still a virgin at eighteen.
Matthew instructed me to get her dressed and made up for an evening
out. He'd been invited to a high-rent bachelor party. Some
connections he'd told him that some circuit judge from Baton Rouge
was marrying a very wealthy girl from New Orleans. The party was to
be hosted at a very exclusive hotel in the French
Quarter.”

Maggie was starting to get groggy. I needed
her to finish this story.

“
Please, Aunt Maggie - just
get to the part about my mother.”

“
Matthew took Marla to this
party telling her he wanted to introduce her to some young wealthy
attorneys and professional men. Of course, other ‘prostitutes’ were
there but the young judge took a shine to your mama. She didn’t
realize he'd paid Matthew a great deal of money for her to spend
the night with him in his hotel room. When Marla got home the next
morning she was furious with me for setting her up like that.
Claimed the man had taken her virginity and then apologized
afterwards telling her he'd no idea and how sorry he was. He said
that he'd been under an entirely different impression.”

Maggie chuckled weakly at the memory.

“
Well, over the next couple
of weeks Marla kept getting flowers from him delivered almost
daily. He kept calling her on the phone wanting to talk to her. He
finally showed up at our duplex. He told Matthew he needed to see
Marla. Matthew let him in and called Marla down to talk to him.
When Marla came back upstairs later she had the two blue velvet
boxes that had those antique earrings and the necklace in
them.”

I knew the ones she was talking about very
well.

“
He told her they'd belonged
to his grandmother and that he wanted her to have them. He said he
was sorry that he'd ruined her; that if he could get out of
marrying his fiancé, he would. He said that Marla fascinated him
and intrigued him. He told her if she ever needed anything she
should contact him. He gave her his card and said he was to be
married the following week but that he'd never forget her. She said
he leaned down and gave her the sweetest kiss ever and held her to
him tightly. She said he whispered ‘I love you, sweet Marley’ in
her ear. I think she actually fell in love with him, right then and
there.”

I got tears in my eyes finally knowing that
my mother wasn't cut from the same cloth as Maggie.

“
A few months later, Marla
discovered that she was pregnant with you. I figured Matthew would
make her get an abortion like he did me, but he saw an
opportunity."

"He paid a visit to the newly wed Mrs. Tylar
with the news and some supporting photos that he'd arranged to be
taken of your mama and the judge’s night together. Marla never knew
about any of this. She was content just to be carrying his child
even though he was married to someone else. She didn’t want to
cause any problems for him. In the meantime, Matthew was getting
the funds he needed from Mrs. Tylar. He told her that the funding
needed to continue because DNA testing was all that was needed to
confirm her husband’s infidelity. It was rumored that Preston Tylar
was on a short list for appointment to a federal judgeship. Mrs.
Tylar wasn't going to let a scandal get in the way of that.”

Maggie’s voice was getting weaker and she was
getting groggier.

“
When you were born your
mama named you Tylar Jamie Renaud. She loved you like there was no
tomorrow. She breast fed you; she said she wanted you to be healthy
and strong. She was never apart from you. When you were about six
or seven months old she told Matthew that she was going to take you
and move back up to Mississippi. I wanted to go with her to get the
hell away from him. Matthew wasn’t going to allow that to happen.
You were his golden goose. She and I were almost to Mississippi on
the Greyhound bus with you when Matthew caught up with
us.”

Maggie visibly shuddered at that particular
memory. “After Marla passed away, you became my responsibility. I
resented that I'd been given no choice in the matter. I hated
Matthew and the control he had over me and my life. You just wanted
a mama. You tried to make me your mama but that just wasn’t in the
cards, don’t you see?”

“
Aunt Maggie, did Matthew
ever see me when we lived in Kentucky?”