Underestimated Too (28 page)

“Swallow me,” he whispered down, pulling out enough
for me to swallow him, all of him.

Drew turned and walked away without a word. I stood,
frustrated as I had been all day. Damn him. I let him beat my ass with a belt,
and he couldn’t even let me come? Fuck that.

“Come and sit in the hot water,” Drew requested.

I stomped towards him with an angry glare.

He stopped me at the door. “Thank you,” he said
raising my chin to look at him.

Thank you? Thank you? Really? Thank you? Oh, my god.
This man would send me to an early grave.

I gasped when I saw the welts on my ass. They
weren’t bleeding but damn close to it. They were not just welts that would go
away by morning. These were deep, dark, purple welts. I turned to look at Drew,
knowing he was seeing it too.

“You’re okay, get in the water.”

Drew held my arm as I eased myself in, holding my
breath when the water hit the painful stripes. “There doesn’t that feel good?”
It did feel good. I leaned back, closed my eyes, and tried to clear my head. I
opened them when I felt Drew run his fingers between my legs. “Open your legs,”
he whispered. Of course the twinge between my legs left me forgetting about the
stinging going on behind.

It hadn’t been fifteen minutes since Drew spewed in
my mouth. I was a little shocked when I looked to see him stroking himself
already hard again. Usually it took Drew at least an hour before he could
perform again. It was hot, hot as hell. I loved watching Drew jerk off. Taking
his time, Drew paid special attention to my pulsating nub, but not enough to
make me come, not until he was ready. As soon as started to call out in long
awaited pleasure, Drew stood, jerked himself hard and came with me, all over my
chest.

Drew sent Marta away when my mother and Caroline
left the next day. This too was sort of his routine. The honeymoon phase, as
Deidra called it. We spent the next four days in total love, unable to get
enough of each other. Drew was so attentive towards me, always telling me he
loved me, touching, kissing and holding me tight all night long. Drew did love
me. I know Drew loved me. He loved me the only way he knew how. And as
repulsive as it sounds, I’d take it.

We didn’t discuss any of that with Deidra come
Thursday. We continued where we’d left off, right after I took care of him when
he was sick.

“So things started to change after that? This is
when you knew you were in love with your wife?” Deidra asked Drew.

Drew studied me briefly, trying to find the right
place to start. Placing my hand in his as he smiled at me.

 “Not exactly. I didn’t let her know that anyway. I
went back to being me, and Morgan went back to doing what I told her to do.
Some nights, I struggled, some nights were easy.  Callaway helped with the
crazy thoughts of me falling in love with Morgan. He started insisting we have a
baby, he needed a grandchild.”

“That’s why you were so persistent on me stopping my
shots?” I asked.

“Yes, he’d been after me for months. That’s when you
ran. That’s why you left, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You weren’t ready for a child?” Deidra asked.

“I wasn’t ready to have Drew’s child. I was afraid
of—of, well, I didn’t want a baby to be—”

“You were afraid of having a monster like me,” Drew
stated.

I nodded, not wanting to do this. Drew and I had
just spent an amazing past few days together and this was going to ruin it. I
hated therapy more and more.

“You were willing to force her to have your child?”
Deidra asked.

“I wasn’t about to have a family with Morgan. It
would never work, and I didn’t want a child to be put in the middle of this fucked
up shit. I wouldn’t hear of it. Of course Mr. Callaway was going to make sure
it happened. He threatened, demanding Morgan have a baby, if I didn’t do it.
What the hell was he going to say to her? Have a baby or you won’t get any
money either? She didn’t even know she had money,” Drew explained, got up and
walked to the window, sliding his hands in his pockets. “I wished a million
times over I never mentioned it to her. I felt like that was the ending factor,
the one that pushed her over the edge. Of course she wouldn’t want to bring a
baby into this mess. Who in their right mind would?

Derik drove her over to the library the day after I
demanded that she was indeed going to have a baby. I never thought a thing
about it when Rebecca asked if Derik could take her. She said she didn’t feel
well, that was a legitimate reason. Why would I think anything different?

I was doing some research in my office that
afternoon when my phone rang.

‘What’s up?’ I asked, seeing Derik’s name. I looked
at the clock on the corner of my screen, thinking they should have been back by
now.

‘Dude, I’m sorry man. She was right there.’

‘Will you stop with the dude and man shit. I tell
you this every single day,’ I scolded Derik.” Drew paused to face the room, and
he said to me, “He always talked like that, didn’t he Morgan?” 

“Yes,” I answered, dropping my eyes.

“Whoa, whoa, hold up a second,” Deidra requested,
when Drew started to talk again.

I looked up to her and then to Drew, wondering what
he’d said that made her want him to stop. She wasn’t looking at him. She was
looking at me.

“What was that, Morgan?”

“What?”

“You went totally stiff when Drew mentioned Derik.
Why?”

Again I looked to Drew.

“We’re not discussing that,” Drew demanded.

“Morgan, did you have a thing with Derik?” Deidra
pressed on.

I wrung my hands and closed my eyes. I didn’t want
to talk about this either.

“Morgan?” she coaxed.

“She doesn’t want to talk about Derik,” Drew
demanded.

“We’re not moving on until we talk about Derik.
Derik seems to be an issue here. Why is Derik an issue? Where is Derik now?”

“Sunshine Villa,” I quietly answered.

“Sunshine Villa?” she asked.

“It’s a nursing home,” I answered.

“Okay, and you’re sad because he’s ill?”

“I made him ill,” I said, letting the guilt devour
me.

“What do you mean?”

I looked over to Drew, wearing an expression that I
couldn’t read. I could read all of Drew’s expressions. I couldn’t read this
one.

“Derik is where he belongs,” Drew piped in. “Derik
raped Morgan, and I didn’t protect her,” Drew sadly spoke.

Drew felt guilty for not protecting me from Derik. “It
wasn’t your fault, Drew,” I assured him.

“It was my fault. Derik gave me many signs of his
intentions towards you. I didn’t read those signs the way I should have. I
should have protected you.”

“Who was supposed to protect her from you?” Deidra
asked.

Drew looked to the floor. Son of a bitch. I didn’t
want this. Wishing I would have never pushed him into this. I breathed a sigh
of regret.

“Can we continue, please,” I begged, wanting off the
subject of Derik.

Deidra raised her eyebrows and waved her hand to
Drew to continue. “You were saying Derik called you,” she reminded.

“Yes, he did. ‘Drew, listen to me. Morgan is gone,’
Derik yelled in the phone.

I stood up. ‘What do you mean, Morgan is gone?’

‘I mean she’s gone. I’ve looked everywhere. She went
into the bathroom and just vanished. I was right here, right outside the door.’

‘Find her. Now!’

‘She’s gone, Drew. I’ve looked everywhere.’

‘How long?’

‘Thirty minutes or so.’

I hung up the phone and turned to my computer,
hoping her phone was turned on, and on her. YES! It was. I looked at the road,
trying to pinpoint where the little red dot was on the map. It looked like it
was the highway, heading to the airport. I watched it, dialing the number for
the airport. She would have had to use the credit card she carried. I could
find out where she was flying by that.

Dropping the phone, I watched the little red dot
disappear in front of my eyes. No Morgan Kelley had a flight, my card hadn’t
been charged, and she was gone. How could she just be gone? She didn’t know
anyone, didn’t know the area except the little neighborhood where she’d gone to
the library.

Rebecca knew something. She had to. I knew she did. Morgan
wouldn’t have done this on her own. That’s why she didn’t want to take her to
the library. She knew she was going to run. Rebecca of course feigned
ignorance, swearing she knew nothing. I had no way to tell whether she did or not.
I should have paid more attention to the cameras. I shouldn’t have let them go
to the library alone, watch movies together, cook, nothing. I should have kept
them apart like I did when Morgan first came.”

“And you think that would have been better than
where you are now?” Deidra interrupted.

I wanted her to shut up. I’d never heard any of
this. I didn’t know how Drew felt when I left.

 Drew didn’t respond. He kept right on narrating his
story as if she’d never said a word. “Derik pretty much ran my company for the
next few months. I would sign my name, give him my okay, and did a lot of
blaming. She was in his hands. He let her run. Everything I thought of came up
with a dead end. I was sure it was her in the library camera, wearing the wig
and the tattooed arm. What I wasn’t sure of, was which one of the librarians or
people helped her. The cab that the camera showed her getting into was
unidentified. I had nothing.

I even went to Rebecca in California a few months
later, begging her to tell me something, anything. She answered the door
holding a very pregnant belly, promising that she didn’t know where Morgan was.

Her father was no help. He wanted more money to help
me find her, like he could do that. The social worker that I’d worked with—to
get Justin—all but told me to go to hell. A few of her cousins told me they
heard she’d moved to Florida. I didn’t believe that either. Where the fuck was
she? And Callaway, shit, I was coming up with everything possible to hold him
off,” Drew explained, running his hands through his hair as though he was
frustrated all over again. “Callaway yelled in the phone, ‘Where is my
granddaughter?’ when I explained to him for the third time in five months that
we would not be attending the Christmas festivities. Morgan didn’t want to fly
home. She wanted me to come to her in France. She wanted to spend Christmas in
France, I explained. At least I could use the excuse of going to her. I could
avoid the festivities as well.

‘Nonsense. She should be with her family during the
holidays. I want to talk to her,’ Callaway persisted.

‘Okay, I’ll call you when I get there. Morgan thinks
I am her only family, remember?’

‘Yeah, well I still think she should be home for
Christmas.’

‘I will tell her how upset you are that she’s not here.’

‘No, no, don’t do that. Just go there and give her
the best Christmas she’s ever had.’

‘I will, sir,’ I lied to him for the thousandth
time.

The English literature bullshit was fairly easy to
get away with. Randal knew how much she liked history and the English behind
it.

Morgan literally vanished in thin air. She was
nowhere to be found. I knew she had to be hiding out someplace where she didn’t
need any identification. She didn’t even have a credit card. How the hell was
she eating?

That mystery was solved during the meeting with the
accountant for the next quarter. I would have figured it out sooner had I not
opted out of attending the last time. I sat alone after the realization of the
donated money news and searched every record for the past two years. Shaking my
head, I laughed. I laughed a full blown throw your head back laugh. I
underestimated her too. Morgan wasn’t such a dumb hillbilly after all.”

Drew looked back at me with a proud smile. I beamed
with pride.  

“Seventeen thousand dollars to Lisa Fitzgerald’s
soup and shelter. Searching for Lisa Fitzgerald and the shelter, I found out—to
no surprise—that she and the organization never existed. Thousands of dollars
was unaccounted for, all donated to various societies or nonexistent people.
She did have money. She had a shit ton of my money, thousands.”

“My money,” I corrected, getting another smile.

Drew continued, “What the fuck was I supposed to do
now?  Callaway wasn’t doing so well, but he knew what the hell was going on. I
couldn’t hide the fact that Morgan was missing forever. He wanted to see her.
He wouldn’t stop until he did.

‘Yes!’ I yelled to the empty office. I’d go to her.
I’d leave Vegas and go to my wife. I didn’t really need to live there to work.
I could do that anywhere or just jump on a plane and head back when I needed
to. It may not have been the perfect solution, but it would hold Callaway off a
bit. It wasn’t like he could travel to France to find us or anything.