In Defense of Guilt Read online

  Lauren slid the key into the slot, opened the door, and kicked her shoes off. She was rubbing her tired feet when the door flung open.

  “Spitballs? Battleships?” Bradley muttered.

  “Thought you’d never get here. Did your mother have to drive you?”

  “Stuck in traffic.”

  Looking lustfully upon her, he wasted no time. Hastily, he unbuttoned her blouse.

  “I just love these,” he whispered hungrily as he dove between her breasts. He reached up with both hands, cupping them roughly thru the lacy material.

  Lauren moaned, brutally running her manicured fingers thru his windblown hair. Bradley led her to the bed and fell on top of her.

  Everything was a game to Lauren. In this one, she was just as ravenous as he, but today she couldn’t concentrate. Damn those visions!

  Sensing her distraction, Bradley sat up. “What’s wrong?”

  Lauren looked up at him with a blank expression.

  “What is it? Did I do something?”

  Bradley saw a tear welling in the corner of her eye. She closed her eyes. It ran down her cheek. Bradley had never seen her in such a distressed state. In that moment, even though they were fulfilling their carnal desires, he had a deep affinity, if not a fondness, for her that transcended the mere physical.

  She shook her head. “No.”

  “Lauren?” he whispered.

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “You call me Dillon. If not your name, what should I call you?”

  “Just don’t say my name, not like that.”

  Bradley backed away, hands up in a no-harm, no-foul gesture. Lauren shifted her position and, grabbing a tissue off the nightstand, wiped the moisture from her eyes. She was beside herself and yet comfortable enough in the presence of someone who honestly couldn’t hold it against her. She turned to him.

  “I’m scared,” Lauren confessed.

  Bradley’s eyes widened in surprise.

  “Yeah, I’m scared, okay? Scared that lunacy is finally catching up with me.”

  The revelation had Bradley at a loss for words. “What?”

  “It’s in my blood, my fucked-up, fucking blood. Uhhgh!” Lauren paused, then laughed nervously. “My mother. My fucking mother went insane. Yeah, when I was about in second grade. Yeah, around that time. Now I’m afraid it’s happening to me, too. She was thirty-four. I guess it took a little longer to catch up with me.”

  Dillon had no idea how to respond or how to act for that matter. Hell, he didn’t even know what Lauren was trying to convey. However, he was committed to giving her the space she needed.

  In spite of her rapidly deteriorating emotional state, Lauren reached behind her and unhooked her bra, in defiance of the demons closing in on her. Bradley couldn’t help but be aroused by her sculpted form. Lauren took off her blouse and turned to him.

  “You know, it’s funny,” she mused. “My grandfather had her committed. He was pretty much a dyed-in-the-wool rat bastard. But under the circumstances, I don’t know what else he could have done. She damn near burned the house down because she said the Virgin Mary told her to.”

  This tidbit left Bradley no longer sexually excited. However, he was mesmerized by her uncharacteristic vulnerability. “Where was your father when all this was going on?”

  “I never knew my father,” Lauren replied a little distantly. Then she shook herself slightly and turned back to him. “We gonna fuck now or not?”

  He managed a come-hither grin and Lauren pushed him flat on his back and hungrily began unbuckling his belt. She straddled him, and he halfheartedly reached for her breasts. He tried not to think about Lauren’s disturbing revelation, but he was not going to be able to perform his manly function no matter how gorgeous the woman pawing at his pants was.

  Suddenly, she jumped off him. “Think they have a Bible here?”

  Dillon was even more confused but also secretly glad he wouldn’t have to come up with a lame excuse as to why he couldn’t sustain an erection. Lauren stumbled to the dresser and Dillon began flinging the drawers open. In the third one, she saw the Gideon. Bradley sat up, watching her in strained amusement as she frantically thumbed through the pages.

  “You’re Catholic, right?” she asked.

  Dillon nodded.

  “Where’s Proverbs?”

  “Ah, somewhere in the middle, I think.”

  “Gotta find 6:16.”

  Lauren increased her speed, tearing several pages in the process. Finally, she stopped and turned a couple more pages, slowly. She paused and began to read aloud.

  “These six things doth the Lord hate, yea, seven are an abomination to him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, a heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discourse among brethren. My son, keep thy father’s commandment, and forsake not the law of thy mother: bind them continually upon thine heart, and tie them about thy neck. When thou goest, it shall lead thee; when thou sleepest, it shall keep thee; and when thou awakest, it shall talk with thee, for the commandment is a lamp, and the law is light, and reproofs of instruction are the way of life.” She turned to Dillon and abruptly asked, “Do you think God hates us?”

  “Uh . . . “ he wasn’t ready to play Twenty Questions. “Why? Because of a serious breach of ethics?”

  “No, damn it. Because of this,” she waved her hand. “What we’re doing. It’s unproductive, nothing but pure lust!”

  Bradley had no idea how to respond. He came anticipating a hotel rendezvous with a professional adversary. He may not win the court case, but he wanted to go home a winner at something. But this seemed to be slipping from his grasp too. He was exasperated and sexually frustrated but somehow felt as exhausted as if he had sex.

  Lauren was tired. Her head was spinning a mile a minute. For the third time in one day, she felt her headache returning with a vengeance. Nonchalantly, she tossed the Good Book back into the drawer and closed each drawer carefully. She brushed her hair with her fingers and quickly buttoned her blouse. In more ways than one, she felt naked, exposed, and somehow dirty.

  “I don’t know if you saw anything, today, but I had some kind of—”

  Lauren checked her words. She couldn’t reveal everything, not just yet. She still had a career to think about.

  “I had some kind of anxiety attack, today. In fact, several.” Lauren beat her open palm against her forehead. “But why? Why? I’ve never had one before, and I get three in rapid succession. What if I’m going—”

  Bat-shit crazy, she wanted to say.

  “Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She paused. “I don’t know, but I swear it was like . . . oh gawd, my head hurts.”

  Bradley had heard enough. He had let Lauren vent and get it all out. But he wasn’t about to allow her to beat herself up believing she was going insane. She was too good a lawyer, too good a professional, too good an acquaintance for that to be taking place. It was simply one off day in a series of extremely stressful days during a high-pressure case. And even at her worst, Lauren had performed brilliantly.

  “Whoa, Lauren. I refuse to believe you’re going insane. I don’t believe for one minute. Hey, you know something, for someone who had a self-admitted anxiety attack, you sure took it to us, this morning.”

  “You’re being far too kind.”

  “No, not really.”

  “I mean to yourself. I kicked your ass today.”

  Dillon snickered. In spite of everything, she had.

  Lauren’s cell rang. She grabbed her purse and plunged into it to retrieve the phone. Looking at the caller ID, she rolled her eyes.

  “What?”

  Lauren’s husband was in a tight situation. Normally, he wouldn’t have attempted to reach her during business hours, given she was in the middle of a trial. He knew how she felt about that. However, he had called Lauren’s secretary to leave a message, and finding out court had adjourned
early to start fresh the next morning with closing arguments, he decided to call her direct.

  “Court is in recess for the rest of the day, why?”

  “So where are you, now?” her husband, Dennis, asked.

  “Having a late lunch with an associate.”

  “Can you cut it short and pick Constance up from practice?”

  “Just because I’m out of court early doesn’t . . . Why can’t you get her?”

  “I’ve got a meeting with the publisher. Sounds promising.”

  “It did the last two times, too. Never mind. Yeah, I’ll get her.” Lauren looked at her watch. “Call her and tell her I’ll be a few minutes late, but to wait for me.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Constance Hill was much like any other 21st-century American girl: a bouncy, frivolous adolescent with a flippant, devil-may-care attitude. Like most high school freshmen, she was vibrant, full of youth and vitality, although she could be on the lazy side when it came to doing things that didn’t suit her. Intelligent to the point of knowing just about everything—or at least thinking she did—she tended to voice her opinion, especially when it came to the adult female in her household. For Lauren, the girl always had a mouth. Mother and daughter butted heads like two alpha rams.

  Constance was fourteen going on forty. Because her mother worked long hours and her dad was usually behind the locked door of his study staring at a blank computer screen and suffering from writer’s block, the impressionable adolescent was not well supervised. She wore too much makeup, skirts too short, and bras too padded for either of her parents’ liking. The only thing that remained from her early childhood was the way she wore her hair—ponytail, always a ponytail.

  With squealing tires, her mother raced around the corner into the Jefferson High School parking lot, going twice as fast as the twenty-mile-per-hour posted speed limit. Constance, watching her mother’s approach, popped a bubble with the two pieces of grape bubblegum she had crammed into her mouth and rolled her eyes. Not her. Not today, she thought.

  Lauren forcefully applied the brakes and came to a bone-jarring halt in front of the school, tapping the front bumper of another parent’s vehicle. She mouthed Sorry at the other driver. “Idiot,” she said as Constance flung the back door open and craned her neck to look inside.

  “You’re picking me up? Seriously?”

  “Yeah, c’mon, get in. Sit up front.”

  Constance closed the back door and repeated the process with the front door. “Why? Where’s Dad? Is he hurt?”

  If I could only be so lucky, Lauren thought. “Glad to see you, too. And no, he’s not hurt, sick, or dying. Seems your father has a meeting with his publisher or something.”

  Constance wasn’t sure she wanted a ride from her mother after all and briefly contemplated walking the three and a half miles home.

  “C’mon, get in, already. I haven’t got all day. I have to prepare for closing arguments in the morning.”

  “Oh, alright,” Constance said, exasperated.

  Not understanding, or, better yet, not particularly giving a damn about pick-up and drop-off procedures, Lauren gunned it as another parent pulled in front of her. Lauren swerved and jammed the brake, narrowly missing the other vehicle. A girl in the back seat was frantically waving to get Constance’s attention. She smiled and waved back.

  Lauren blasted the horn.

  “What the hell is wrong with these morons? Where the hell did she get her license, a Cracker Jack box?”

  “Mom! Oh, my gawd! That’s Jessica’s mom.”

  “I don’t give a flaming rat’s ass whose mom it is. We’re not pitting at the Indy 500, here. Get your seatbelt on.”

  “Already did.”

  “C’mon, move it, already,” Lauren shouted, blaring the car horn.

  Constance slid lower in her seat, as far as her seatbelt would allow, and covered her face out of sheer embarrassment. Hastily, Jessica’s mother pulled ahead to let the mentally deranged woman behind her maneuver. She watched as Lauren sped away, missing her Chevy Caprice by mere inches.

  “See, this is what happens when you have nothing to do all day but go from Home Depot to the grocery store to get cupcakes and garden shears.”

  “Really, Mom? Cupcakes and garden shears?”

  “Yeah, I’d like to see them work in the real world.”

  “And what world do they live in, mom?”

  “Like the one your father lives in, Make-Believe Land. Where you get to sit home on your ass and confuse creativity with productivity.”

  Lauren turned to Constance in time to see the blank expression on her daughter’s face.

  “Oh, whatever,” Lauren said, and then added after a pause, “anyway, how was your day?”

  “Really, Mom? What do you care?”

  “Don’t give me that attitude, young lady! If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t have bothered asking.”

  Constance wasn’t convinced, yet she truly wanted to tell her some exciting news, exciting to her, anyway. She had been chosen by her peers to be the junior varsity captain of the basketball team. Constance took a deep breath and began to dive in.

  “Constance,” her mother interrupted, “I want you to know something.”

  Constance sat back, arms folded across her chest.

  “I’m not going to go insane on you. Promise.”

  Constance so wanted to say something sarcastic based on her behavior back at school, such as “You could have fooled me,” but wisely decided not to press her luck. She didn’t want to get grounded so close to the weekend. She was invited to a party, and it would be tragic not to be able to go. Everyone who was anyone was going to be there.

  Insane? Where did that come from, anyway?

  “What, you have nothing to say to that?” Lauren pressed.

  Constance let her mother have it. “What?” she said sarcastically, “Like you’re gonna miraculously turn into a real mother, all of a sudden?”

  Lauren was incensed. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Nah, I know exactly what it means. You and your father have a little cabal against me. A conspiracy. That’s what this is, and I’m always the bad guy.”

  Constance thought about changing the subject, but the damage had already been done. Normally, the girl thrived on being argumentative with her mom, but practice had been particularly grueling that afternoon. She was exhausted, and she suddenly had the urge to go to the bathroom. Raising her voice was putting undue pressure on her full bladder.

  “Please, can we just get home?”

  Lauren hadn’t exactly had an easy day either, so she was just about to table the argument when her eye caught some doodling on her daughter’s notebook. Alternating glances between the road and the notebook several times, she deciphered some rather unfavorable writing. It read Love Dad with a heart and a smiley face next to it. Underneath, in bold letters, she clearly read, Hate Mom. Lauren’s hurt turned into anger. She was furious, but the lawyer with nerves of steel managed to remain relatively calm.

  “So, you want to change the subject. Okay, wanna tell me what that says in your notebook?”

  Oh, no! Constance thought. Mom sees everything. Constance quickly covered the wording with her open palm. “Nothing,” she muttered.

  “Move your hand!”

  “Mom, it’s nothing . . . nothing! It’s just about boys!”

  Exasperated, Lauren whipped a sharp turn. Tires squealing, the car lurched forward and jolted to an abrupt stop. She was certainly giving the suspension a workout. Lauren turned the engine off and faced her willful daughter.

  “Lying to me? Move your hand; don’t you lie to me, missy!” Lauren yanked her daughter’s hand away and read, Love Dad. Hate Mom.

  Busted! Constance was bathed in guilt. Blushing, she lowered her head in shame, no longer wanting to spew smart-alecky phrases. She was caught red-handed in a hurtful lie. Nothing to explain. Nothing she said could make a difference. Those malicious words were plainly in front of her, boldly written
in blue ink for teachers and friends alike to read.

  Of course, for Constance to have written such spiteful words, she had to be hurting. But Lauren could not see beyond her own grief as a parent. In her anger, she didn’t take the time to work out the whys behind her daughter’s negative feelings. This kind of attitude was inexcusable. Lauren worked long hours to provide for her ungrateful daughter’s needs. Constance was all smiles when she needed clothes or a new iPad. Then, Mom was good enough. All those niceties came with a price that Lauren had to pay—long, sometimes tedious hours slumped over thick texts or talking to people she didn’t even like.

  It was Lauren—not Dennis—who had supplied most of her child’s physical needs, and Lauren couldn’t understand why he got all of Constance’s love and affection. She couldn’t see that Constance didn’t just want the material things. Constance didn’t have the motherly support most other girls her age had, and she missed it. Lauren was too wrapped up in her own selfish desires to see the damage those long hours away inflicted on their relationship. She could see that there was a wedge driven between them, but she refused to see that she herself may have been the cause of such animosity. Although Constance was fourteen and gaining more independence, she still needed and longed for a closer bond with her mother.

  Instead of trying to both logically and lovingly get to the crux of the situation by speaking in civil tones and getting to the real reasons behind the feelings, Lauren became incensed.

  “Is that true?” she growled. “Is this how you feel?”

  Constance tried to look away as a tear escaped. She didn’t loathe her mother. Those words had been written out of hurt and frustration, as her mother missed basketball games, rehearsals, and more importantly, mother-daughter talks. All her friends had mothers who did all those things. They reveled in their children’s accomplishments and comforted them in their failures. It would never have occurred to them to miss out on them. Constance didn’t have that, and she felt it missing from her life.