Page 31 of Off Limits
The intense pleasure of a moment ago recedes as the full implications of what just happened begin to settle into my mind.
I just had phone sex with Cynthia, who now knows the full scope of my deep perversions.
“Jean-Luc,” she says.
“Cynthia,” I try to cut her off, but she continues speaking in earnest.
“Hear me out. I just want to be clear that was just for fun, okay?”
Relief floods through me. “Right. Yes. Okay. Thank you.”
“It’s…we can’t flirt in the office or anything, okay?”
“Of course.” I raise my eyebrows quizzically, wondering what I’m missing here. This is too good to be true.
“I’m…involved with someone there.”
Ahh. “Who?” I ask with a smile. I can’t help myself.
“I shouldn’t tell you,” she answers. “But maybe it’s better you know, so you don’t…say anything.” She takes a breath. “It’s Bob.”
Bob? “Which Bob?” I ask dumbly, searching my mind for any other Bob who works at Kearns & Rochat.
She laughs. “You know which Bob.”
“Oh.” Fuck. “Bob.”
“Yes,” she laughs again. “That Bob.”
There are layers here. There’s the fact that she just had phone sex with me when she’s ‘involved’ with a friend of mine, but that’s not the first thing that comes to mind for me. It’s Cynthia—er, Bob’s Cynthia, his wife—with her carefully-styled hair and pearl earrings, serving us martinis and laughing gracefully at Bob’s dumb jokes. Cynthia Kearns who gives so hopefully of herself to Bob so that she can help him and their family have the life they want.
“Bob’s married, you know,” I say. I can’t help myself. “You know that, right?”
Here I am, the guy who wants to fuck his stepdaughter. I don’t have a leg to stand on. But I can’t felt but feel dumbfounded at the revelation. Bob is cheating on his wife.
“I know,” she says with a touch of irritation. “It just is what it is, okay? But let’s just keep this call between us.”
“Okay,” I concede, half-relieved anyway. At least my secret won’t come out. But I have the sinking sense I participated in something awful—that everywhere in my life, normal boundaries are disintegrating.
Danica
KYE PARKS IN the driveway, and swings an arm over the back of my seat.
“You sure you don’t want to invite me in? Looks like Daddy’s not home.”
The driveway is empty. Jean-Luc’s Jaguar is with him at his office, and his other car, the Miata, is under a tarp in the garage, as usual.
For a week now, I’ve been taking the bus to school. After everything that’s happened, I guess, Jean-Luc doesn’t feel comfortable spending all that time alone with me in the car.
It had broken my heart when he’d placed cash beside my breakfast plate and said, “I’ve been thinking about it, and maybe it is time you started taking the bus to school, after all.” Then he’d patted my head awkwardly and picked up his briefcase, adding, “You need to leave in about ten minutes to get there on time,” before walking out, the front door closing smoothly behind him.
Since then, I’d been taking the bus for two hours a day between Jean-Luc’s house on Southwest Marine Drive and my high school in North Vancouver, so when Kye had passed me at the bus stop today and offered me a drive home, I’d been happy to accept.
I’d never replied to the text he sent, saying sorry for being a jerk, but it was clear in the car that we were putting all that behind us, Kye chatting cheerfully about school stuff, peppered with the occasional unexpected sexual innuendo, and already it feels like things are somehow right back to where they were a couple of weeks ago.
I shake my head politely as I open the car door. “I’m meeting Christine,” I lie. “I can’t.”
“All right.” He shrugs, looking irritated. “But when you want to fool around, Holland, let me know.”