Chapter 22: Marcy

Wednesday, December 20, 2023

“I need your help,” Jade said, her face worn, a note of desperation in her voice.

“What’s going on, Jade?” I said. “How can you even show your face here?”

“Invite her inside,” Robin said behind me, though her tone was not inviting.

“Whatever. Come in,” I told Jade.

Jade looked at Robin, then me. Finally, she entered my home. We went upstairs.

“Do you want tea?” Robin asked Jade when I closed the door behind the three of us. Jade looked much thinner and older like she’d aged five years in the last year.

“No. Thank you.”

Jade sat on my couch the same way she always did when we were dating, wedging herself into the corner and putting her feet on the table’s edge. She did it automatically. And when she realized what she was doing, she sat up straight and put her feet on the floor.

“I can’t believe you would just come to my house and ask me for help after what you did,” I growled, rounding angrily on Jade.

Jade’s eyes went wide.

“Marcy—” Robin began, but I silenced her with a look.

“No. No! I came to her—” I turned back to Jade. “I came to you for help. My mother was...” The words caught in my throat. I swallowed hard and forced myself to continue. Jade stared back at me, still with the same wide eyes. “She was dying, and I needed your help. I came to you for help, and you raped me! You forced me to have sex with you! You took pictures of it and sent it to her!”

Jade’s mouth opened as she looked from me to Robin and back to me. The gall she had to sit there with a confused expression made me want to scream. Her expression transformed from one of surprise to anger.

“I raped you? You raped me!” she finally said. The simmering fury in her tone rose like a boiling pot. “What in the hell are you even talking about?”

Robin shrunk away into the kitchen while Jade and I stared each other down.

“You came to me for sex,” I reminded her. “You wanted to fuck me that night.”

“And you fucked my asshole without my permission!” Jade shouted, standing up and clenching her fists.

“You never said which hole you wanted it in, did you?” I retorted, taking a step closer to her. We were practically right in each other’s faces even though I towered over her by about a foot. “You just showed up after ignoring me for months!”

“I tried to make amends way earlier than that. We had coffee! Remember? You acted like I didn’t exist! Don’t put that on me!”

“Now you know how I felt when you ghosted me! And what I did to you was nothing compared to what you did to me!” My voice broke, and I sat down, covering my face so my tears wouldn’t show. “I don’t know what you did to me! What did you put in that tea you gave me? I couldn’t even move! I just sat there while you abused me and took pictures of it!”

Jade looked from Robin to me. “What are you talking about?” she screamed.

“Bullshit,” Robin said, emerging from her corner. “Jade, stop lying! You took pictures and sent them to my phone. You tried to break us up! It’s all right here.”

Robin showed Jade the pictures she’d sent the night she drugged me and raped my ass. Jade recoiled in horror, falling back onto the couch.

“No! I didn’t—that’s not me. I would never do that!”

“You did!” I screamed. “That is me in those damn photos, you bitch!”

I lashed out with my hands at Jade, but Robin stopped me. Jade cowered into the couch cushions, covering herself.

“It wasn’t me!’ she shrieked. “I would never do that! I would never! You have to believe me! Never! Please!”

Robin continued to restrain me, yelling behind me, but rage coursed through me like poison being pumped into my veins.

“Stop, Marcy!” she cried. “Stop and listen! Look at her!”

Jade sobbed on the couch, her frail body so thin and worn. Her eyes haunted, her skin no longer its beautiful mocha color but almost gray, the life and joy drained out of her. It finally dawned on me that Jade could never do that to me. She would never do that to me. She had loved me, and I had broken her heart, and all of the things that had happened to me since then were my fault.

Not hers. My fault.

It wasn’t her fault she had ignored me and avoided me after cheating. It was mine. I had to own up to my actions and take the blame. I couldn’t keep looking for reasons to hate her because of the pain she suffered at my hands.

Finally calm, I peeled Robin off me, went to Jade, and held her. Jade stiffened initially, then wrapped her arms around me, and we both cried.

“I didn’t do it!” she sobbed into my shoulder. “I don’t know who it was, but it wasn’t me!”

“I believe you,” I whispered.

In my heart, I finally understood what had happened. I remembered the feeling of darkness in the room. The horrible, skin-crawling sensation in my skin and my guts. Demons. Demons had possessed her and done something to me—frozen me somehow. So much rage burned through me that my body shook with it.

I continued to hold my ex-girlfriend. Something about this was incredibly fitting and familiar; my soul was soothed. Through my chest, I sensed Jade’s heartbeat calm. I thought of the many nights we’d spent together in bed, falling asleep while holding each other. How I had missed her touch and her love!

Then I thought of Robin and let go of Jade.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I said, ending our embrace. “What kind of help do you need?”

Jade stared at her hands for several seconds before looking up at my face. “Do you still work at Black Velvet?”

I shook my head. “I was fired last month.”

“Oh,” Jade said, forcing a smile onto her face, but the underlying devastation at the news was apparent. “That’s okay. I mean ... it was a stupid idea anyway. I—I should probably go.”

Jade stood to leave.

Robin and I exchanged a glance before I spoke up. “What? Why?”

“This is just so awkward for me.”

I touched Jade’s shoulder and gently pushed her back onto the couch. “It’s awkward, yes. We’ve both done things to each other that we regret. Can we accept that for now and get to what you need?” I took a deep breath and pushed away my emotions. “Jade, I’m willing to help you.”

“I don’t know how you can help me.” Jade let out a weak, broken laugh. “If you don’t work at Black Velvet anymore, there’s nothing to be done. I’ll be fine.”

Again, Jade tried to exit. Again, I eased her back into her seat. “Just because I don’t work there doesn’t mean I can’t help you. Why don’t you tell us what’s going on so we can decide for ourselves if it’s pointless?”

Jade took a deep breath. I could tell she was fighting back more tears. “Maybe I should start from the beginning...”

Jade talked for almost an hour. Robin and I sat across from her, holding each other’s hands, and listened. At some point, a mug of tea appeared in Jade’s hands. I barely remembered seeing or hearing Robin get up and prepare it for her. Jade sipped at it as she spoke, telling us about a person named Sir who was blackmailing her. The longer Jade talked, the more I couldn’t believe what she was going through and the sorrier I felt for her.

“This has been going on for four months?” Robin asked.

Jade nodded.

“And a demon told you that by finding your boss’s calendar, you can get out of this predicament?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Jade,” I said slowly, “I was at one of these recordings. I did it as a favor for a woman named M. She is my boss at Black Velvet. Was my boss. She is friends with Sir. You and I had sex.”

Jade didn’t seem surprised to hear this. “I suspected it was you, but I wasn’t sure. She called you Q?”

I nodded. “But I didn’t see what Sir looked like. She—he—she ... I don’t know which. Sir had a mask on the entire time. Everything was set up through M.” Then something else Jade had said struck me. “And why are you trusting a demon?”

“I think I can trust this one,” Jade responded. “Marjorie is my boss at the library. I didn’t find a calendar in her work office. I found a notebook with the letters BV on it. The logo matched your work. That’s why I came to you. Do you know anybody named Marjorie at your work?”

“No,” I said. “Well ... my old boss’s name is M. That could be Marjorie, right?”

“Maybe...” Jade said. She pulled out her phone and scrolled through her photos until she found what she was looking for, then turned her screen toward me. “Is that M?”

“Yes!”

Jade’s entire face changed. “Really?”

“Yes. That’s definitely her.”

“Then we need to find her calendar at Black Velvet.” Jade took another sip of her tea. “But how can you do that if you don’t work there anymore?”

“I have an idea,” Robin said.

Jade and I looked at her.

“Marcy could go there during the next Black Velvet event to pretend to ask for her job back. M usually meets with people in her office, which means that while Marcy is in there, I could create a distraction. If M leaves Marcy alone in her office, Marcy could look for a calendar.”

“What would I do?” Jade asked.

“Just leave it to us,” Robin answered. “You said you wanted help.”

“I can’t let you two do all that for me while I do nothing.”

“Yes, you can,” I said. “Let us do this for you as a way of making amends.”

“I finally feel a bit of hope,” she said. “And I haven’t had that in a long time. Thank you.”

“Do you want to crash on our couch tonight?” I asked.

Jade declined the offer. “I’ll sleep better at home, but thank you.”

We all said goodnight, promising to text or talk soon to discuss our plans, and then Jade left.

Robin and I went to bed. Just before Jade had knocked on my door, Robin and I had made something of a breakthrough in our relationship. We still needed to consummate that moment. We tenderly and quietly made love for the first time as true girlfriends, with no hint of Robin being a pet. It was the best sex I’d had in over a year.

I woke feeling more refreshed than I’d been in weeks. It was time to get back to being the person I enjoyed being: fit, healthy, and busy with work. I glanced at the door to Phoebe’s bedroom. It was closed. What was Phoebe going to do? I knew she would continue to work, but would she continue to live?

My mothers’ careers had left them with plenty of money, but how much of that had been spent on those damned infusions? Did Diane leave Phoebe with a life insurance policy? Was the house paid off? I had many unanswered questions, but I didn’t know if it was the right time to bring them up to Phoebe.

She didn’t leave her room that day. How long would she be like this? Isolating herself to deal with her grief? Staying locked up in her room? I didn’t like it but chose to leave her alone for now.

Robin and I spent almost the entire day together: going out for brunch, a trip to the mall, catching a movie, and then dinner afterward. It had been too long since we’d enjoyed each other’s company. We talked about how we would help Jade, what point we wanted to move back to Denver, and a few other long-term things.

At dinner, Robin said, “I thought you were going to open your own plumbing business. Do you think it’s time to revisit that idea?”

I stabbed at my pasta. “I don’t know. That’s going to cost a ton of money. Unless I start working at Black Velvet again, I don’t know if I can raise it.”

“I can help,” Robin said.

I smiled at her with gratitude, though I couldn’t imagine she had much saved besides what she’d earned at her handful of Velvet events.

“What sort of job would you get? Are you going to beg M for your job back, too?”

“God, no!” Robin exclaimed. “I hate that place. I want to help you run your own business. I want to be the co-owner and operator.”

“Yeah?” I asked. “What do you know about running a business? Because I don’t know anything.”

“I took some business classes,” Robin said. “I could get the hang of it. With your plumbing knowledge, I could focus more on the profitability and hiring side of things.”

I sighed and set my fork down. “None of this matters until we have the capital to start the company. And that’s going to take a little longer now that I’ve blown a few thousand away on alcohol and drugs.

“How much do you need?” Robin asked.

I stared at the ceiling, recalling all the numbers I’d crunched in my brain so many times. I wanted to start a company with only female plumbers. Women who did quality work and could be trusted to do things the right way. It was a tall order, but I planned to start big. I didn’t want to go through the pains of being a one-woman operation. But if I wanted to start with three master plumbers and three apprentices, multiple vans, a couple of trucks, gear, and office space needed without getting any investors or banks involved in the loan, I would need around a quarter of a million dollars.

I told that number to Robin.

“And how much have you saved so far?” she asked.

“A little over $100,000 in cash, and I could get about $20,000 more easily.”

Robin shrugged. “Why don’t we pool our money together and become equal partners?”

My eyes narrowed on her. “You have $125,000 lying around? Is that money you squirreled away from your ex?”

Robin blushed and looked away from me. “No.”

“Well then—”

Robin put down her fork and stared hard at me. “Between my prenup payout and the money I invested during our marriage ... I have almost three million dollars.”

“Shut the fuck up,” I said automatically. “No way.”

Robin’s face went even redder. Then she nodded.

“Are you serious?” I whispered. “You’re a fucking millionaire?”

“Yep.”

We both started laughing so loud that several heads in the restaurant turned to look at us. I took Robin’s hand in mine. “You were already hot, but now you’re five times hotter.”

“Now you just want me for my money?”

“Of course not. But I’d love to go into business with you. What’s yours is yours.”

Robin smirked at me to show she’d been teasing. “I’d rather what’s ours is ours.”

“I don’t want you to feel unsafe about your money.”

“Our money.”

“Right,” I said, “but given my recent troubles with drugs and alcohol, maybe you ought to put some safeguards in place to protect yourself.”

“The fact that you’re even suggesting these things tells me I can trust you.” Robin squeezed my hand. “I’m in love with you, Marcy. I have been for a while.”

“I love you, too,” It was the first time I’d told her, and I didn’t regret it. “So ... okay. Let’s start working on a business plan. And as soon as we’re ready, we’ll get the ball rolling on our plumbing business.”

“I have the perfect name already,” Robin informed me. “Pussy Plumbing. Logo of a cat with a wrench. We’ll be known for great service and gorgeous women.”

“You’re not worried I’ll be tempted by other women?” I asked.

“I hope you are!” Robin exclaimed. “Because I want to fuck people with you! Together. How many times do I have to tell you we don’t need to be strictly monogamous, Marcy? We just need to be together. On the same page. Open and honest with each other.”

A wolfish grin grew on my face. “How did I get so lucky to be with you?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but you sort of hit the fucking jackpot. And so did I.”

When we got home, I checked on Phoebe. She was in bed, mostly asleep. Used tissues decorated her nightstand, carpet, and pillow. She cracked an eye open when I whispered her name.

“Have you eaten anything today?” I asked her.

Phoebe nodded.

“What?”

Phoebe opened her one eye a little more. “Excuse me?”

“What? What did you eat?”

“A sandwich.”

“Do you need anything?”

She shook her head. I leaned down and kissed her forehead. Phoebe mumbled Diane’s name, then tried to hold my hand and kiss it. I gently pulled my arm away from her and whispered, “Good night.”

I closed her door and went into the kitchen to snoop. I saw no evidence in the sink, garbage can, or dishwasher to convince me Phoebe had made herself any food, even a sandwich.

On Friday, I spent the day at home with Robin. We discussed our business plan for most of the day and then reviewed our ideas for getting me alone in M’s office. We cooked three meals, brought each one into Phoebe’s room, and made sure she ate. My mother was no dummy. She knew exactly what we were doing but seemed amused by it.

“This is how I grieve,” she told me over the bowl of soup I brought her. “I’m going to eat. I’m going to take care of myself.”

“It’s just...” I hesitated to say what I needed but pushed on. “Robin and I are thinking of returning to Denver after the holidays. We have some business plans. Exciting things. And I want to make sure you’re okay. If not, maybe you ought to come with us.”

“No,” Phoebe said at once. “I can’t do that. You two need to be together alone. Your relationship is so new and fragile. My presence would cause problems.”

“It’s not that new,” I said. “And I don’t think it’s very fragile. We’ve been through so much already, and yet...” I smiled to myself. “We are better than ever.”

“But I’ll get in the way. I’ll be a nuisance.”

“Well, I’m worried about you.”

“Don’t be. I’m fine. Or I will be fine. But I do have a question for you.” Phoebe wiped her lips with a napkin, her hand trembling slightly. “Are you and Robin no longer exploring the domme/sub dynamic?”

“No. It didn’t work for her. And that’s okay. She’s a fabulous girlfriend. A partner.”

“But you still feel a pull from your dominant side?”

I paused to think about that before answering. “I enjoy being a domme. I like having a pet, but I’m not good at it.”

“Why do you say that?” Phoebe asked.

A sardonic laugh escaped me. “Look how those relationships turned out.”

Phoebe finished her soup and set down her bowl. Then she looked at me. “I agree that you weren’t very good to Gina from what you’ve described. But Robin was never a sub. Maybe she likes getting spanked and demeaned during sex, but that doesn’t make her a submissive.”

“How do you know what she likes and doesn’t like?” I asked.