“Why?”
“Why not, Oscar?” She sounds too happy. Either she’s high or she’s fucking with him. He doesn’t feel like talking to her. He just wants to get back to his bed and jerk off for a while to thoughts of Ren.
“Fine,” she sighs when he still hesitates. “I’ll come to you.”
The closer she gets the more the air smells like decaying flowers. Oscar has to force himself to stand his ground. All he knows about Lita Savage is what Ren has told him. It would be enough to make anyone with some common sense a little wary, but Oscar detects something even worse than the gold-digging bitch that Ren has described. This woman is pure poison.
She takes a drag on her cigarette and looks him up and down. He can’t quite read her expression in the dark but he’s not sure he wants to.
“How have you been, Oscar?” she inquires sweetly. “I’ve been meaning to check in with you to see how things are going.”
“Fine,” he answers slowly. “No complaints. Hey, I never thanked you for opening your home to me. So, thank you.”
“Hmm, yes. Wasn’t my decision at all.”
“I get it. Well, thanks anyway. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll leave you to your night.”
“Wait a minute,” she murmurs, and suddenly she’s right there, running a palm over his chest. It’s a seductive gesture and Oscar recoils instinctively.
“Are you out of your mind?” he growls.
“No, not tonight.”
“Don’t fucking touch me again.”
“You know, you really shouldn’t address your aunt with such profanity.”
“You’re not my aunt.”
“Technically I am.”
“Lita, what in the hell do you want?”
“Isn’t it obvious?”
She can’t be serious. She just can’t be fucking serious. She’s not laughing though. He looks around to make sure they are alone. If anyone else is around, he doesn’t see them. Telling her to piss off might not be effective. Oscar glares at her and decides to remind her of the way things are. “In case you don’t realize it, what you’re proposing is illegal.”
“Illegal?” She tries out the word. “Illegal. Now why do you think so?”
“Because I know damn well that there are laws protecting kids here. And by American standards, I’m still a kid.”
“No, you’re not,” she answers matter-of-factly.
That takes him back a step. She’s goddamn crazy. Has to be.
“You look confused, Oscar. Let me explain. I called in a favor from an old friend of the family who happens to be a private investigator. Now, there wasn’t much record of you, but there was enough to conclude you’d been in the New York State system for six years when Mina scooped you up.”
He feels like he’s missing a crucial deduction. “So?”
“So that was twelve years ago, Oscar. Twelve years. Remind me what six plus twelve is again?”
He doesn’t answer. She nods. “That’s right. You’re eighteen. At least.”
Though vaguely unsettled, he remembers something Ren told him. Something he believes completely. “You’re a liar, Lita. You lie all the time. You don’t know how to do anything else.”
“Maybe,” she shrugs. She drops her cigarette on the ground and grinds it beneath her heel. There’s no warning when she grabs his shirt and rubs her body against his. She has the same willowy build as Ren but there’s nothing soft about her. She’s all hard edges and claws. He fingernails scrape the back of his neck as she pulls his mouth in. He tastes tobacco and something vaguely garlic as her tongue searches for his. Repulsed, he pushes her away.
“What the hell?” he snarls, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand to purge the taste of her.
Evidently unruffled, Lita straightens her skirt and lights another cigarette. “I might be lying,” she purrs. “I might be searching for any reason to fuck that hot, hard body of yours, Oscar.” She shrugs her bony shoulders. “Or I might not be. Either way, you’d better think twice before screwing any more slutty teenagers because that could get you in trouble. Especially since I’m letting you know that you’ve got a better option.”
“You’re fucking sick,” he shouts at her back. She’s already started walking away, strutting toward the big house as a handful of bats fly directly overhead. She keeps walking, giving no hint that she heard him.
Once she’s out of sight the sordidness of the encounter catches up to Oscar and he sinks down on the brothel porch, feeling queasy. Even though the stink of her awful perfume still hangs in the air he can’t quite believe what just happened. It’s not the first time an older woman has taken a liking to him. Hell, two schools ago he had a brief and dirty thing going on with the headmaster’s wife. This was different though. Even if Lita Savage wasn’t the mother of the girl he’s crazy about, he wouldn’t touch her if someone paid him. She is lethal.
Oscar removes the rock from his pocket and all thoughts of Lita Savage fade away. She’s either nuts or drunk and won’t likely bother him again. As for all that nonsense about diving into his history, who cares? So what if he’s eighteen and not seventeen? He doesn’t care. His mother obviously doesn’t care. Anyway, there’s not much chance it’s actually true. According to Ren, Lita can’t tell her ass from her elbow.
Ren. Ren. Loren.
He pictured her stripped down to her underwear, cozy beneath her bedcovers, a smile on her face as she drifts off to sleep. She’s thinking of him, he knows it. What she’ll never know is how it nearly killed him to keep his hands off her for the longest time. It had to be the greatest testosterone restraint on record. And even after that first incomparable kiss under the moonlight he’d forced himself to go slow because he knew that’s what she needed. Tonight though, that sealed everything between them. They did the deed and they said the words. It makes no difference how old they are or how many Lita-type monkey wrenches are thrown in the way.
She’s his now. She always will be.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
REN
I was always a miserable performer. Lita was forever scheduling screen tests during pilot season in Hollywood, that brief period when all the new shows are looking for their casts and would-be actors from across the nation camp out in seedy Boulevard motels hoping to catch a break. I never got any callbacks.
“Loren does not project.”
“Loren is uniformly expressionless.”
“Loren fails to occupy space with confidence.”
It didn’t take long for Lita to give up on me. Monty and Spencer wanted nothing to do with any of it, but Brigitte and Ava were willing so I guiltily thanked the greater powers for giving me some sisters my mother could exploit.
Speaking of sisters, Brigitte’s been avoiding me ever since I cough cough ‘assaulted’ her in the kitchen. I can only guess what kind of sobbing show she’s putting on for her private Blue Room interviews. I’m not going to ask. If I want to know I’ll find out when the show airs, just like everyone else.
As far as Ava goes, she knows I’m rattled. She always waits until the crew is gone for the night before pulling me aside and asking if I ‘want to talk about i..
I do not.
I do not want to talk about Oscar. No, not Oscar, Oz.
I do not want to talk about the contemptuous look in his eyes or the crass things that came out of his mouth or the way I had to bite the inside of my cheek to try to stop the trembling that threatened to devour me.
I do not want to talk about how every sexually deprived nerve ending in my body begged to be handled by him right there on the dirty floor of the barn.