Page 6 of The Spiral

Chapter 4

Madeline

So what’s the plan?”

“What do you mean?”

“The plan, you know, a new man to play with?” I smirk, shaking my head at Callie and turning around to face anything but her in the restaurant. I haven’t played with a man for a long time. Lewis became anything but playful. But if ever there was someone to not beat around the bush, Callie’s it.

Eventually, having searched for an escape from the conversation only to find there still isn’t one, I look back at my food. Salad appears to have become standard eating material over the past week. Salad and anything that could be deemed easy to digest. I’ve got no appetite at all. I don’t know what’s happened. I expected to be full of energy and life after leaving Lewis, but I’m not. I’m sad, feeling sorry for myself for some unquantifiable reason.

“Because you’re moving on, right?” I snap my head up to her. Of course I’m moving on. What does she think, that I’m still pining for my old life and its violence?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I’ve been here a while now and you’re still eating salad. You’re moping and pathetic.” She dabs her mouth and puts her cutlery together neatly, leaning back and crossing her arms at me. “It’s getting a bit old, Maddy. I thought I was coming here to party, wake you back up so you could get on with life, but you still love him, don’t you?” No. Not at all. Perhaps a little bit in some way, but not enough to give a damn. “Either that or you don’t know what to do without him. Which one is it? Are you still hopelessly in love with the bastard? Or are you just weak?”

“May I remind you that I did actually leave him last week, and that I have a house without him in it. I’m over it, Callie. It’s just, I don’t know, I feel like my left arm’s been cut off. That’s all. It’s odd being on my own.”

“Even though he beat the shit out of you constantly?” A shushing noise comes out of my mouth quickly as I scan the room surreptitiously. I could have clients in here. “Yeah, whatever. You’re not over him at all. I don’t know why. He’s an asshole. I told you, but you wouldn’t listen, would you? How often did it happen? Weekly? Daily?” Oh bugger this. In the middle of a restaurant, really? She’s been here two days and she chooses this place for the conversation?

I’m leaving the chair and walking over to the paying booth before I’ve thought about it. It’s been great having her around, just like old times in some respects, but as always with Callie, mouth moves before brain thinks.

“I’m not letting you walk away from this, Maddy. You need to speak about it, you know? Get it all out there in the open. Just because the bruising’s about left your skin doesn’t mean it’s gone from your mind, does it?”

She’s right. I know that. I do. But not here, and certainly not until I’m consciously ready for that sort of discussion. I didn’t ask her here to railroad me into this. I just wanted some laughs, like the old days, something to get my mind over being on my own.

I pay the waiter who happily offers me the stupidly high bill considering the nine scraps of lettuce I’ve eaten, and I swing myself towards the door hoping she doesn’t follow. She does.

“And what is it that he had anyway? He wasn’t even that good looking with his floppy hair all on display,” she says, hurrying to catch up and linking her arm through mine. “I really can’t see it at all. I know it wasn’t the money. That shit’s never interested you, so what? The lifestyle? Did you enjoy the beatings or something? Was it sexual?” God no. My scowl lands directly in her direction as I shrug my arm from her and quicken my pace. What the hell does she think I am? “Don’t look at me like that. I mean, there’s stuff like that about or so I hear. Apparently people get off on it. And you did stay with him, so…”

“Well, I’m not one of them,” I mumble in reply, opening the car door. “And I don’t know why I stayed, but I’ve left now so it doesn’t matter anyway. I’m not ready for this, Callie. I just need to work more and find my way out the other side. I’m happy right now. It’s okay. Just leave it, will you?”

She buckles up and shunts herself about in the seat until she’s got her booted feet up on my pristine dashboard and is fully facing me. My look of horror at her blatant disregard for cleanliness clearly goes unnoticed.

“I call bullshit. You’re not okay. You’re still all screwed up about it.” I huff out at her continued interrogation and start the car, trying my best to ignore her irritating feet and her irritating mouth as I slam on the power and rev out into traffic. “Nope. That’s why you asked me to come stay. So I’m here, right? Doing my thang. Winding you up and causing chaos. You should thank me really. By the time I’m gone, dickheads will be a thing of the past.” I can’t help but snort at her as I round the corners and see her eyebrows shunting up and down out of the corner of my eye. “We’ll have you fucking someone new in no time—a nice boy with a little cock so it doesn’t hurt too much.” That causes a splutter of laughter to come out of me. “Not too little mind, no fucking point if ya can’t feel something going in and out. Unless his hands are handy, you know?” And now I can’t keep a straight face. “Poking without substance is actually highly nauseating. Gotta have a bit of girth, right? I mean, this last guy I was fucking was all at it. Big, broody, the works. And then, tiny fucking wiener.” There’s another snort from me, followed by me still trying to appear irritated with her and failing. “It was like puny. Fucking useless with it, too, by the time he found the fucking hole.” She’s waggling her hips around now, pretending to have sex badly. “And how do they get that big without their cock growing, too? How does that fucking happen? Wasteful. Their mama should’ve fed it better.” I think snot just came out of my nose. I quickly delve around for a tissue, attempting to cover my accident. “Did you just snot out your nose ‘cause I was talking dick?” Oh my god. “Dick, cock, shoving and grinding. You knoooow you want it again. You do. Say you do. Go on, say it. We’ll find you a nice one. You just leave it to Aunty Callie. You’ll be having that pussy licked out before—”

“Will you stop?” I spit out through my still snorting nose. “Jesus, Callie.”

I continue with my coughing and spluttering for a while as she carries on and does not stop. In fact, she carries on with her amusing tales of sex for about fifteen minutes as I try to drive in a straight line, aiming for home. So much so that by the time we actually arrive home, I’m crying, full on tears of proper hilarity pouring down my face as she keeps talking. “And so, yeah. He’s going at it like a trooper and I’m like, ‘You finished? ‘Cause I’ve got a shift in ten and someone better at fucking to find after it.’ He got a bit fucking pissed at that, started going hell for leather, fucking lubing up and sticking his thumb in my ass, which was getting somewhere, you know…” She’s shoving her crotch about again, boots scuffing my dash and grunting out, ungodly sounds coming from her mouth. “Yeah, then he revved the fuck up. Dick grew, too. I was like, ‘yeah, baby, ride that ass’” I’m crying hard as I slide the car up to the drive, shoulders shaking as I desperately try to park.

“STOP! Oh, for god’s sake. Please, I can’t breathe”

Silence descends, thankfully, and I eventually turn to her hoping she’s not going to carry on any further. I seriously can’t cope. My guts hurt from laughing so hard. She’s smirking at me, finger pointing at my face and her brows up.

“And that, Maddy, is the first time I’ve seen a real smile from you since I got here.” I roll my eyes at her and get out, still snorting back tears and checking my watch for the time. Eleven am, plenty of time to get this show on the road and head for the Blandenhyme meeting. I just need to get changed and get my serious head back on. “See, that’s why I came.” My breathing slows to something close to harmonious as I open the door and switch the alarm off. “Gotta get you out of whatever the fuck this past few years has been, right? Find the old Maddy again? Talk about shit and clear the route forward, yeah?” Maddy’s gone. Madeline finds her way through this. Perhaps then Maddy can come back, but not until then.

I throw the keys on the kitchen table and shrug out of my denim lightweight jacket as Callie goes straight for a beer from the fridge then sits on my table and waits for my conversation.

“Okay, okay,” I say, throwing my hands up in the air at her relentless attack. “So I’m still a bit preoccupied with it all, but I’m moving on. Okay? I am. I don’t want him back. I’ve left. Done. Maybe I’m just not quite ready to acknowledge it all yet. It’s hard to think about. I feel alone, Callie. Like a part of me is missing and I’m lost without it. You wouldn’t know how it feels…” I trail off and sit on the chair in front of her, not quite knowing how to get the words out, and probably not wanting to anyway. She puts her hand on mine and squeezes.

“No one expects it to be easy. You just gotta talk it out, yeah? I got a few more days here, that’s all. We talk as much as you can ‘til then, okay?” I nod, at least acknowledging in some way that I get it. She’s right. As she always bloody is.

“Tonight then. We’ll start tonight. I’ve got to meet this guy first and deal with that. It could be worth a fortune to me so I don’t want to be all bleary eyed when I meet him.”

“Guy? Like hot guy?”

“I don’t know. He owns the Blandenhyme estate about fifty miles from here. They’re selling off some antiques and paintings. His name’s Mr. Caldwell. Other than that I don’t know anything about him.”