But I learned nothing of this mysterious stalker. I begged Kyle for information, but he remained tight-lipped. He just kept reminding me, as Jeremy did whenever I brought it up, that I was perfectly safe. And I did feel safe at our remote little villa. If I went with them to the set, I was surrounded by people at all times, even when I wanted peace to sit and read. We didn't play again with Jessamine, although I saw her often. I got the feeling it was more his choice than hers.
Kyle also began to spend less time with us, at least as a sex partner. I think it was better for him and for me. Without Kyle milling around or joining in, the sex began to feel more intimate than ever before. In fact, it became almost unbearable subterfuge, to play the affectionate girlfriend in public where it was all a lie, and then later, in the deepest, most honest moments of intimacy, pretend I didn't care about him at all.
Pretend
. I pretended. I acted. It was all a total lie. I was in love with Jeremy Gray. But I pretended I wasn't, and he pretended I wasn't. Anyway, I kept reminding myself that one day it was going to end.
* * *
We left Portugal the next to last week of December to spend the holidays with Jeremy's family in the mountains of North Carolina. Jeremy got mad when I tried to beg off, when I asked to stay in the villa until he returned. He wouldn't even consider it.
“You stay with me,” he said. “That's what I pay you for.”
But I didn't know how I would handle this meeting. I didn't want to handle it. While Jeremy drove us to his parents' house, I tried to ferret out more information about how I should act, what to expect, but he was in a terrible mood.
It was late, we were both tired, and we drove on a winding road that made my stomach turn. We climbed and climbed in the dark until my ears popped and I thought his parents must live at the crest of a mountain. Maybe he was driving me up there to throw me off. He'd rented a car with a manual transmission, and now I saw why. I could never have maneuvered these hills and slopes.
Something about watching him drive aroused me. He drove like he made love, recklessly but with breathtaking skill. I couldn't stop watching him shift gears like he owned them as he coaxed the car up and down the steep hills. But of course, Jeremy Gray could do anything and everything well. That was the appeal.
“Jeremy,” I finally asked. “Do your parents know?”
“Know?”
“Know what I am to you?”
He frowned. The muscles in his forearm bunched as he downshifted around a tight corner.
“They think you're my girlfriend, and that's how you'll act. And they'll practically smother you with excitement and affection in hopes that finally I've met a girl who'll make me settle down.” He looked over at me in my conservative, girl-next-door cardigan. “They'll go wild for you. You're the 'least Hollywood' girl I've ever brought home.”
“So you bring all your girls home?” I asked, not trying to disguise the sarcasm in my voice.
“I spend every Christmas here in the mountains, so yes, I've brought a few. And you should know”—he looked, for the first time I could remember, deeply embarrassed—“my parents are very old-fashioned and religious, so you'll have to sleep in your own room the next couple of nights.”
I burst out laughing. I couldn't help it. Jeremy Gray, the product of a conservative and religious home.
“What's so funny?” He shifted with a little more force than necessary.
“It's just funny. How do you not find it funny?” I laughed again.
“Because it's my fucking life.”
“Yeah, well, we all have fucked-up lives, Jeremy,” I said. “I just can't believe you ever set foot in a church, much less were raised by religious people.”
“What? I'm not that evil. No more so than you.”
I snorted. “Whatever.”
“Don't make me pull the car over. It's really late.”
I snorted again, which in hindsight was a mistake. He pulled over and yanked me out. He bent me over the trunk of the car so my feet dangled at least two feet above the road.
“What if a car comes?” I asked as he unbuttoned my jeans and pulled them down to my knees, along with my panties.
“I guess they'll see me beating your ass.” He tugged the belt from his pants and doubled it over. “Don't bother to count. I'll stop when I feel like it.”
“Are you mad, Jeremy? Because you always say you don't want to hurt me in anger—
Ouch
!”
“I'm not mad,” he said. “I'm irritated, and you're acting like a brat.”
“Ouch.
Ouch!
I won't even be able to sit down at your parents' house!”
“Yes, that's what I hope for.”
The chilled metal of the car against my skin froze my front while my backside was absolutely red-hot. I counted up to twenty in my head before I gave up and started to beg.
“Please, please, stop. I'm sorry! My ass is on fire!”
“I said I would stop when I felt like it.”
I buried my face in my arms, trying with all my strength not to reach back and shield myself, or jump off the trunk of the car and run. I'd probably go tumbling down the side of the mountain and be found frozen in a heap at the bottom with my red, bruised ass exposed. Of all the appropriate ways to die…
“Jeremy, you're killing me!” He finally stopped when I started to cry, but he didn't let me down, just put his hand on my lower back and held me still while he undid himself.
“You may find my life funny,” he said, thrusting deep inside me, “but you of all people are in no position to judge.”
“I was joking, Jeremy.” I sniffled. “Why have you been so mad all day?”
“Because I get tired of the lies, Nell, living this farce.”
“Then why don't you stop lying?” I could barely get the words out as he pummeled me with forceful thrusts.
I grunted as he pulled out of me and pressed his cock against my ass. He entered me all the time this way now, with only the lube from my pussy. I clenched against the pain, then willed myself to subdue the protective impulse. He slapped me lightly.
“Open. I want to fuck your ass.”
“Yes, Jeremy.”
He eased the head of his cock in, then waited for me to relax before thrusting the rest of the way inside. I moaned. I couldn't help it. It was a little painful, as always, but 100 percent better than the pain of his belt.
“Jeremy.” I gasped to the rhythm of his fucking. “If you're tired of the lying, why don't you just stop?”
“Hush. Let me fuck you. And don't you come, you little fuck slut. I don't want you to come.”
Jesus, I'd really ticked him off.
“Yes, Jeremy.”
Yes yes yes, whatever you say.
Not only did he not let me come, but I had to ride the rest of the way up the mountain with my pants around my knees, my bare, sore ass on the scratchy rental-car seat.
Lies
Nervous, sore, ass-fucked, horny.
It gave me great pleasure to introduce her to my parents that way. It would have been better to have harnessed her under her jeans with dildos in her pussy and her ass, but I hadn't thought that far ahead.
If I
had
to lie, if I had to lie about
everything
, let me lie about her too. Let me make her base and dirty instead of the beautiful, intelligent girl she truly was.
As they greeted her with hugs and exclamations, I wanted to yell,
She's just my whore. I'm too worthless and sick to deserve anything more of her
. But I didn't. I just hugged and exclaimed too. All the other girls had been painfully out of place here, but she was so perfect, it hurt.
It hurt
. Nell shifted on the sofa as my mother brought tea and cookies. I watched her. I'd made her hurt.
Lately I wanted to hurt her all the time. Hurt her the way that she hurt me. Hurt her so she would turn on me and I wouldn't ache anymore over how perfect she was. How much would it take to drive her away from me, far away from me, where she ought to be? Nothing so far had worked, but to take things further, to really hurt her to the point she would leave…it was too difficult. It was a game of chicken I couldn't and wouldn't play.
At least not yet.
My hand went to the pocket of my jacket, to the small box there, the box I'd been carrying since a week ago when I'd come up with a ridiculously stupid idea. It had been such a ridiculously stupid idea that I'd called Martin to run my stupidity past him first.
“Martin, about the stalker. Do you think…? I mean… I wonder how it might affect her if I were to get engaged to someone?”
“Engaged? Like, to be married?”
I could already tell by the tone in his voice that he thought it was as ridiculous as I did.
“I mean, it might put her off, don't you think?”
“Or make her even angrier at Nell,” Martin said. “Leslie Gray thinks
she's
your wife.”
“I know, I know. But maybe getting engaged to someone else would make her reconsider that.”
Martin was silent a long time.
“So, you mean…get engaged to Nell.”
“Yes,” I said, my voice tight.
“Well, do you… I mean…are you talking about
really
getting engaged to Nell, or…?”