“Undress my soul
and may I lay
naked before your
eyes.
Discolor the sorrow
and melt the pain
like snow,
for in this world
it has only ever
been a disguise.
Take me as I am naked.”
–Christopher Poindexter
Monroe
OLIVER COLLAPSED ONTO
the bed next to me, both of us still struggling to catch our breath. The realization of the underlying meaning of my words registered on his face seconds after they fell from my tongue, and though I had no intention beforehand of telling him that he was my first, the moment just felt right. I wanted him to know the depth of my feelings for him, as new and unfamiliar to me as they still were. I needed him to understand the magnitude and the significance of what we had shared. Something I’d never shared with another human being.
Once our chests had calmed from the erratic series of inhales and exhales, Oliver excused himself to the bathroom, where I assumed he was discarding the condom and washing his hands. Returning in less than a minute, he surprised me when he climbed on the bed with a warm, wet washcloth and began to gently clean between my legs.
“Ahh,” I winced at the tenderness of the entire area, even though it was apparent he was trying to be as soft and soothing as possible.
He stilled instantly as his concerned gaze shot up to find mine. “You okay?”
“Yeah, go ahead.” I nodded, slightly embarrassed. “Sorry, just a bit sensitive and I have a pretty low threshold for pain.”
“Don’t apologize. I’m gonna get you some ibuprofen and water too. You’re probably going to be sore tomorrow,” he said, resuming the soft pats against my overly sensitive skin.
Offering a faint smile, I reached out and lightly dragged my fingers across his firm stomach as I murmured, “Thank you for taking care of me.”
He finished cleaning me then leaned down and kissed the tip of my nose. “Someone should’ve been taking care of you long ago, beautiful girl. Now, stay right here and I’ll be back in a few minutes to do more of just that.”
I did exactly as I was told, not moving an inch from the happy place I found myself in, grinning foolishly at the ceiling as I waited for him. Everything seemed so surreal. Nothing like I’d dreamed it’d be . . . somehow, it was so incredibly better. I was worried the disturbing memories that often haunted my dreams might make an unwelcome appearance the first time he touched me in places only my hands had ventured the previous twelve years, but the only images that appeared behind my clenched shut eyelids were colorful starbursts of awe—inspiring pleasure, more spectacular than the night sky on the Fourth of July. Then, the way he gave me the power to control the actual penetration . . . it was like he knew exactly what I needed to feel completely comfortable without me ever saying a word.
I also had expected to experience an onslaught of conflicting emotions in the immediate aftermath, assuming that at least part of me would feel shame or degradation, due more to my reservations about sex than because of Colin. But shockingly, the negative never came. Instead, I relaxed into a tranquil sea of pale blue sheets, basking in the waves of security, serenity, and sexual satisfaction that I knew without a shadow of a doubt only Oliver could give me.
He was my more. He was what I deserved. Now, my only fear was what if what I had to offer him wouldn’t be enough.
Before I had any time to dwell on the challenges in front of us, Oliver reappeared in the doorway with a warm smile carrying two glasses of water and a bottle of Advil. And he was still naked. Good God, the man had some abs to kill for. And a nice, tight ass too. Oh, and the cock of a porn star. Okay, okay . . . maybe it wasn’t that big, but it’d sure felt like it twenty minutes ago.
“Here you go,” he prompted as he settled on the mattress next to me, placing a water in one hand and shaking two of the pills out into the palm of the other.
I threw the medicine in the back of my mouth then swallowed the entire drink in a single gulp. Evidently, sex was dehydrating. After stowing the empty glass on the nightstand, I rolled onto my side to face Oliver, fully aware he was patiently waiting for me to be ready before he peppered me with the string of questions I knew he was dying to ask. Questions he deserved answers to. Answers I wanted him to have . . . only some weren’t mine to give.
We lay silently for several minutes, mirror images of each other, with our bottom elbows bent and our heads propped up on our hands, lost in each other’s eyes. I wished with all my might that I could somehow telepathically transport the stories of my past to him so I didn’t have to actually speak the words, but no such luck. I guessed I had used up all of my superpowers for the night.
Unsure of what to say or how to start, I grew shy in my nakedness and moved to cover myself with the blanket. Oliver’s arm darted out and caught mine, his long fingers wrapping around my petite wrist. I lifted my gaze to meet his again and he shook his head, his eyes overflowing with compassion and acceptance.
“Don’t hide from me, Monroe. Not now. Not after what you just gave me. I want you to be naked with me, beautiful,” he urged softly as he pulled my hand to his mouth and kissed the inside of my wrist. “All of you.”
My stomach fluttered as I watched his lips press against the delicate, translucent skin and I melted into the bed, no longer worried about how exposed I was in front of him. “Sorry, I’ve never done this before,” I confessed like it was something he didn’t already know.
Releasing my arm back at my side, he flashed me a shit-eating grin. “Yeah,” he chuckled, “that’s the part we need to talk about. Wanna tell me why you didn’t alert me of this beforehand?”
“Well, it’s not something that usually comes up in everyday conversation,” I replied with a shrug. “Not to mention, once you found out that I was a virgin, you would’ve had a million other questions I wasn’t ready to answer . . . at least not then.”
“Are you ready now?” he probed, scooting his body closer to mine. “Would it make it easier if I held you while you talked?”
I nodded as he drew me in against his chest, enveloping me in his arms and intertwining our legs. Then, once I was safely inside my Oliver cocoon, my senses surrounded by everything that was him, I gave him my more.
Only mine wasn’t so pretty.
“Hey, Mom,” I rapped my knuckles against the door of her home office as I called out to her, hoping I would catch her before she got on the phone, “can I talk to you for a minute? It’s kind of important.”
Her exasperated sigh was so loud I heard it like she was standing right in front of me, not in another room, through a wood door.
“Yes, I suppose, but make it fast! I’ve got a schedule to keep!” she shouted back, not even pretending to care more about something I deemed important in my life to her hot yoga class that started at five.
No, Vivian Taylor had lost interest in me, her only child, about the time I was old enough to tell her that I had no interest in following in her footsteps and being a childhood actress. She tried to convince me to change my mind for several months after I first broke the devastating news to her on my eleventh birthday by signing me up for audition after audition, but once she realized I purposely put forth no effort to try and win the roles she claimed “were written just for me,” she flat out informed me that I was the biggest mistake of her life and basically pretended I didn’t exist from that point forward. Any nurturing I did receive came from our housekeeper, Martha, but my mom kept her so busy with her daily list of ridiculous tasks that I did my best to just take care of myself and not burden anyone.
I pushed the door open and tiptoed in as my teeth chattered with nerves. I didn’t know how in the world I was going to tell her what I needed to tell her without getting sick. The thought alone made bile shoot up the back of my throat.
“Well, what is it, Monroe?” she huffed, not even looking up at me. “You know I hate to be pestered with your petty kid stuff. I’m a busy woman who’s working her ass off so you can have all of these nice things since you refuse to work. If your dad wasn’t such a washed-up has-been, maybe he could help me out a little bit with all of your expenses.”
Staring at her in disbelief, I wondered what planet she lived on. I couldn’t recall the last time the two of us had a conversation, she hadn’t had a job in over two years other than a few commercials and guest appearances here and there, and the royalties she made off my dad’s albums from when they were married were the sole reason she had half of the things she had, none of which I cared about in the least—including our extravagant Hidden Hills home.
“
Monroe!
” Shouting at the top of her lungs, she clapped her hands in my face and snapped me out of my haze. “Are you on drugs? What the hell is your problem? Do I need to take you to rehab or something?”
“No, Mom.” I shook my head and glanced down at the floor. “I’m not on any drugs and I don’t need to go to rehab. I’m thirteen years old.”
“Spit it out then. Make it snappy.” She flitted around the room, doing a bunch of nothing that I could tell, but it was obvious she wanted me gone as quickly as possible. Had it been anything else in the world, I wouldn’t have bothered her, but with this, I had no choice.
Taking a deep breath for courage, I started talking as fast as I could. “Last Saturday night, after you went to sleep, Richard came into my room to see if I was still awake. I was up watching a movie in my bed, so he asked if he could join me, that he wasn’t tired yet. So, I-uh, I . . .” As I stammered over the words, my vision blurred with moisture. “I said okay, ‘cause I didn’t really have a choice, and—”
“Monroe, seriously!” She threw her hands up in the air and glared at me, incensed. “Did you really come in here to tell me you watched a movie with your stepfather? Do you really think I care?”
I shook my head as the humiliating tears spilled over my cheeks. “No, but I thought you’d care that he touched and kissed me in my private areas, even though I told him not to. And I thought you’d care that he made me touch and kiss his too.” I paused briefly to wipe my running nose and to see if she had any reaction at all, but when she just stared at me with her face void of all emotion, I continued talking. “I told him no over and over again, that I didn’t want to, but he told me that if I didn’t do what he said, he’d leave you and make sure you never worked in Hollywood again. I didn’t know what to do, Mom. I begged him to stop. I told him that I wasn’t that kind of girl. But he just kept saying mean and nasty things while he forced me to do stuff.”
By this time, the sobs were wracking through my body with such force I could barely stand up straight. I had showered over ten times in the two days since Richard—a bigshot studio executive and my third stepfather—had visited me in my room, and yet I still felt filthy and slimy from head to toe, no matter how hard I’d scrubbed and scoured my skin. In addition, I hadn’t been able to sleep whatsoever. Every time I got in bed, I’d stare at the doorknob, praying it wouldn’t turn. The only positive thing that had happened was he hadn’t come back. At least, not yet.
“What kind of things did he say to you?” she asked sharply as she began to move toward me.
I shuffled my feet backward and shrugged, really not wanting to repeat the words aloud that had played in a continuous loop through my head. “I don’t remember,” I lied through my hiccup. “It was just dirty, ugly things.”
“You’re a shitty actress, Monroe,” she seethed, closing the gap between us in a split-second. I had backed myself against a wall, and with her rapid approach, I had nowhere to go. “Tell. Me. What. He. Said.”
Another wave of tears splashed down my face as my entire body trembled with fear. I honestly hadn’t anticipated an overly affectionate display of concern from her, but I did at least think she’d try to console me in some way. After all, I was still her daughter, and what her husband did to me was not only disgusting and despicable, it was against the law.
“He said I needed to learn how to be a good cock-sucking whore like you if I ever wanted to amount to anything in life,” I admitted as I wept uncontrollably. “And then he told me that he’d been thinking about the way my baby-girl . . . pussy would taste and feel since the first day he met me. That it was one of the perks of marrying you . . . getting two hot pieces of ass for the price of one.”
Then, catching me completely off guard, my mom—the woman who gave birth to me, the one who was supposed to love me unconditionally and be my fiercest protector—slapped me across the face. Hard.
“You lying little slut!” she shrieked, grabbing me by my left ear and dragging me by it over to her desk, where she shoved me down into the oversized leather chair. “I don’t know what your ultimate game is, little girl,” she frothed, spit flying from her mouth, arms flailing wildly around, “but you are not going to steal this man from me. I don’t know why you’ve never wanted me to be happy, but this time, you’ve gone too far. I can’t believe you, my own fucking teenage daughter, trying to seduce my husband, all because you’re so damn jealous that I’m finally getting back to my old self again.”
“Mom, I’m not—” I cried.
Slamming her hand on the intricately carved wood desktop, she refused to let me talk. “No! Don’t even try that ‘Mom’ bullshit with me. I’m through wasting my fucking time on you. Get online and find a boarding school that you can transfer to immediately. I don’t care where it is. I don’t care what it costs. All I want is you and your slutty little homewrecker ass out of this house . . . like yesterday!”
And with that, she charged out of the room in full dramatic fashion, leaving behind a crushed and broken young girl who would never properly recover.
Richard visited me again that night to give me a going-away present. “Your first pearl necklace, Monroe,” he claimed with a revolting smirk as he held me down and released himself all over my neck and chest, “but definitely not your last.” Pulling his underwear and pants back up over his hips, he strolled casually out of my room, looking back over his shoulder just before he left. “And don’t let me find out about anybody else touching your pretty little pussy while you’re gone. It belongs to me.”