Lair, p.1
Lair, page 1
© 2023 David Sullivan
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without express written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations for reviews.
This publication is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. The characters are all productions of the author’s imagination.
ISBN for paperback: 979-8-9866781-0-8
ISBN for ebook: 979-8-9866781-1-5
LCCN: 2023900440
For readers 18+. Contains brief descriptions of domestic violence.
Cover design by Booklerk.
Transmarinia Press
2709 N Hayden Island Dr
STE 330550
Portland, OR 97217
If you were ever made to feel
you weren't enough,
this is for you
CONTENTS
ONE
TWO
THREE
FOUR
FIVE
SIX
SEVEN
EIGHT
NINE
TEN
ELEVEN
TWELVE
THIRTEEN
FOURTEEN
FIFTEEN
SIXTEEN
SEVENTEEN
EIGHTEEN
NINETEEN
TWENTY
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-TWO
TWENTY-THREE
TWENTY-FOUR
TWENTY-FIVE
TWENTY-SIX
TWENTY-SEVEN
TWENTY-EIGHT
TWENTY-NINE
THIRTY
THIRTY-ONE
THIRTY-TWO
THIRTY-THREE
THIRTY-FOUR
THIRTY-FIVE
THIRTY-SIX
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ONE
It was 2:59 a.m. and I laid rigid in bed, listening to Josh breathe. Waiting.
The next part was the hardest: to actually start. To make the decision to leave Josh and set aside our old life together, packed away like so much treasure, and confront the reality of a future that would not contain him. Not include Josh.
The digital numbers on my clock changed: 3:00. Time to go.
And still I laid there, trembling. How could I go on? How could I do this?
Then I thought of the reddish-black bruises on my cheek, and my jaw ached as it clenched.
3:01.
I pulled the covers away, and there was his meaty arm draped over me. I gingerly lifted it, not daring to breathe, and set it aside. Then the horrifying moment of scooching out, my weight depressing the bed.
He snorted in his sleep, and I froze. But he only turned away and heaved a sigh.
Jesus.
My one bag was already packed and waiting for me under the bed, and I knew Cailee would be waiting for me. So that was all taken care of.
Next, tiptoeing over the broken glass and dirty laundry on the floor, careful to not look at the fist-sized hole in the wall. The terror pouring out of me in rivulets of sweat. A squeak of the floor as I dipped to grab my coat and shoes.
My hand was shaking when I laid it on the doorknob. My breath held as I waited to hear if he stirred, never daring to look back.
Then I slipped out, like a grave robber, into the night.
The farmyard was lush and green in the Oregon darkness. A light rain pattered down, and the sweet smell of the stables stung my nostrils. I had begun to shake by that point; I was in a bad way. But I didn’t have time for that. I was not yet in the clear. I had crushed sleeping pills into Bowser’s food earlier that evening, and he was still in his doghouse by the door, snout on paws, chain coiled before him. But I didn’t trust him sleeping for long. Not only was that black rottweiler big as hell, he was also blindly loyal to Josh and hated me with an evil will.
I swallowed and snuck past. Ahead, gleaming in the rain at the end of the drive with its headlights off, Cailee’s crappy pickup waited in a cloud of exhaust. So close.
My insides turned. Maybe this would actually happen.
The low growl behind me shattered that hope.
I turned to see Bowser standing with heavy muscles corded under his sleek black coat, slobber dripping from his snarled lips. His pinprick eyes blazed death.
Cailee stuck her head out the driver side window. “Run, Arie! Run!”
I bolted. There was a heart-stopping unsnaking of chain, and then an angry clink as Bowser was jerked short, teeth snapping shut inches behind me.
His ferocious barking brought the lights of the farmhouse on, and my knees threatened to give out.
“Hurry! Hurry!” Cailee shrieked.
I couldn’t help it: I looked back. And there was that familiar shape, a dark shadow that stomped out into the yard, hands balled into fists. “Get back here, you bitch!”
Sobbing as I scrambled into the truck and slammed the door shut behind me. As the truck peeled out in rooster tails of gravel, the figure pounding on my window, making me shriek. My hands to my ears, but the voice getting through all the same. “You’ll never do better than me! You hear me? You don’t deserve it. You’re mine!”
And he was right. That was the terrible thing. This was all for me to make a life for myself, to reclaim an existence where what I ate, what I said, what I thought was not controlled by someone else.
But what was I to care about now? How would I know I was alive?
His lasting gift to me. The knowledge that I could run all I want, but how would I ever replace him? Who else could ever pose so vibrant a challenge?
And the truck barreled on through the wet night, the shadow of my old life falling impossibly behind, and Cailee rubbed my back and made soothing noises as the rain pounded and the darkness flew up to swallow me and—
I tip up my face and drink in the sun’s warmth, memories leaching away. Even after two weeks in the shimmering tropicality of Florida, I haven’t gotten used to it. The perpetual rain of Oregon has turned me into a sunshine addict.
A cool shadow crosses my face and I open my eyes—Cailee stands above me, hands on hips, her perfect brow wrinkled in annoyance. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”
“Sorry,” I mumble, dipping my scrub brush into the sudsy water bucket. “What were you saying?”
It’s June. We’re in the Port of Miami, on a little wooden cruiser that’s all gleaming mahogany and pinstriped topsides. There are rows of these classic-looking, Venetian-style boats bobbing at the docks, and we have to clean all of them today. Daywork, they call it. What we aspiring yachties do for income while we hope to get a position aboard a boat.
“I said,” Cailee intones, “what do you think about Greg?”
I glance over at Greg on the next boat over, one of the many bland-looking hotties who’s in the crew house with us in Fort Lauderdale. He catches my eye and grins, and I look away.
“Mm-mm,” I grunt noncommittally.
Cailee pinches off the hose she’s using to wash down the deck. “Aurora Strand. I helped you escape your abusive ex by bringing you with me into the glamorous world of yachting. The least you can do is help me get laid.”
I sigh and give her a look. Point taken.
“Okay. How about Jordan?”
To my surprise, Cailee blushes. “Well . . .”
I gape. “Cailee. Don’t tell me you already . . .”
Cailee shrugs, one of those helpless little gestures she’s perfected.
“Oh my God,” I laugh. “Was it . . . back at the crew house?”
The crew house. Basically an off-the-grid condo for yachties. And I do mean off-the-grid. The owner blacked out the windows and demands we enter from the back so we don’t draw the attention of the hotel chains, who hate crew houses for avoiding hotel tax laws.
Also, they’re a notorious place for hookups.
“No,” Cailee blushes again. “We kinda . . .” And she points through the window of the wheelhouse to the hidden interior of the boat.
My jaw drops. “Cailee Summers, you little slut. You did it while you were dayworking?”
Another helpless shrug. You know you still love me . . .
“But . . .” I splutter. “How . . .?”
Cailee gets a mischievous little grin on her face and plants one foot on the foredeck of the neighboring boat a few feet over, so she’s straddling both. “I tried this little move . . .” And she bends forward as if to hose down the boat’s hull, showing off perfectly toned legs and ass cheeks poking out of tiny cut-off shorts. A blinking advertisement that screams “FUCK THIS.”
Greg freezes, mop poised and eyes huge.
Cailee flips her wavy blonde hair and looks over her shoulder at me, brow arched.
We both burst out laughing. It feels good. Needed. Because for a second there I was beginning to think about my ex again.
This is why I love Cailee: She’s impervious. Her trust—in flings, in romance—is total. She pursues a guy wholeheartedly, miseries be damned, and always survives without a scratch. In the throes of it she’s unabashed, full of cringing mushiness, of almost willful destruction, appalling to watch. But when it is clear it’s not working—the door shuts. No wavering for her, no drawn-out, humiliating uncertainties. She is brisk and uproarious, pragmatic and breathlessly objective about it all, unapologetic about the spectacle she’s made of herself.
In other words, she couldn’t be more different from myself.
Me, who stuck with the same guy since I was sixteen. Who had t hought this farmer’s son with the stocky frame and sensitive reddish skin was my soulmate. I had thought, in the beginning, that he was perfect. I had never felt so seen, so cared for. I put him on a pedestal. Yes, I quickly saw—even if he did not—that he was a delicate man, and considered it part of my duty as his partner to accommodate that insecurity. Little did I know how slippery a slope that would prove to be. Why not put off going to college in the city for a few years to support his dream of running a farm? Why not put up with his touchiness about being contradicted, his tendency to shift blame onto me if his flaws were exposed, if his ego happened to be as sensitive as his skin? Why burden him with my thoughts and feelings if he was so busy? Why not hide from my friends how I felt like a hostage at the farmhouse when he was drunk, and what he’d sometimes do to me? No one wanted to hear about that.
It was the price of loving him, I told myself. This was how he needed to be loved.
Cailee disagreed.
And so, after spending a year wearing me down and planning our escape, she had dragged me here. To the Sunshine State.
Free at last, at the suddenly ancient-sounding age of twenty-four, and feeling like I don’t know the first thing about myself.
Sensing my thoughts, Cailee pulls out her phone and hunkers down beside me. “Guess who has a million followers now?”
I sigh and look at the Instagram feed: Emmie Gallagher. A blonde-haired beauty in a bikini with puffy lips and come-on-me tits, hanging on some businessman’s arm on a yacht. It’s hard not to compare myself to her. I’m brunette, short, compact, un-plumped—hardly supermodel material.
I shake my head. “Can you believe she graduated high school with us?”
“A bona fide Influencer. Only took her a couple of months. You think she’s banging that guy?”
“Definitely.” I pause. “But still. It’d be nice to enjoy the good life.”
Cailee turns thoughtful. “Yeah . . .” For a moment she scrolls through endless photos of Emmie frolicking in exotic locales, then shoves her phone back in her shorts. “We’ll get there. We’re both getting staffed on superyachts and seeing the world. Right?” She holds out her pinky, and I laugh and crook mine around it.
“Right.”
“And then we’ll seduce the billionaire owners and retire at twenty-five.”
I snort and push her. “That’s what you’ll be doing.”
Cailee smirks and stands, grabbing the hose. “Suit yourself, Goody Two-Shoes.”
Smiling, I look around. Boats bob, gulls cry, fresh-faced dockwalkers pad down the floating links of docks, hoping to score a gig to the Med. Behind us, hot-pink Art Deco buildings and glass-plated skyscrapers shimmer in the heat, the flamboyant architectural magic of Miami. Sometimes I don’t know how I got here, or into what world I’ve strayed. I could be content here. This could be enough.
I shut my eyes—
RRR. RRR. RRR. I jerk and pull out my phone, check the incoming call: Unknown. My heart sinks. The blood thumps in my wrists. How did he find me? How did Josh—
But Cailee knows exactly what I’m thinking.
“It can’t be him,” she mollifies. “You got a new number, remember?” I look up into her eyes, and find enough strength there to nod and take the call.
“Hello?”
A cool, clipped voice drifts into my ear. “Miss Strand?”
I feel the hairs on the back of my neck prick and glance over at Cailee. “Yes?”
“This is Renata Sproule with Lair Yachting Incorporated. I have a captain who’d like to speak with you.”
I put a hand to my brow. “I’m sorry. Who is this?”
“Lair Yachting Incorporated. I have a captain who’d like to speak with you in person.”
“In person.” I lift my brows. Both Cailee and Greg are watching me now, hose and mop gripped tight.
“Can you be here in two hours?”
“I, uh . . .” I look over at Cailee, and she frantically motions at me: Yes! Yes! Do it!
“Yeah, sure. No problem.”
“Perfect. See you soon, Miss Strand.”
Click.
I stare at my phone like an idiot. What just happened?
“Well?” Cailee’s patience lasts all of three seconds. “Did you get an interview?”
A little bubble of happiness is expanding inside me. My voice comes out hollow and stunned. “Yeah. With Lair Yachting Incorporated.”
Cailee and Greg look at each other, and I feel my stomach twist.
“What?”
A big breath, and Cailee says, “Did you know anything about Lair Yachting when you sent them your résumé?”
I shake my head.
“They’re, like . . .” Another glance, and Greg takes over.
“They’re a crew agency who work exclusively for the biggest names in the yachting industry. Like, the mega-rich. It’s, I don’t know, a mysterious club or something.”
“Arie.” Cailee fixes me with her gaze. “You just won the yachting lottery.” And a huge, dazzling smile spreads across her face. “So go nail this interview already.”
Excitement buzzes in my chest like bees. I jump up and down, hands fluttering. “Oh my God, oh my God!”
Cailee laughs and points. “Go! Go!”
I hop onto the dock. “What do I do? What do I wear?”
Cailee talks me down like a paramedic. “Go back to the crew house. Get a fresh polo and your navy skirt—”
“What about the daywork here? I haven’t—”
“Are you kidding me?” Cailee snorts. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and you want to throw it away for some fucking daywork?” She makes a shooing motion. “Go.”
Melting with gratitude, I whirl about . . . and bump right into a soft wall of flesh: Randy, our boss for the day, a garden-variety rich Florida redneck who lives alone in an empty Italianate marble mansion, eats fast food every day and wears shorts and a baseball cap. His eyes bug in his tanned oil rigger’s face. “Where do you think you’re goin’? These boats look done to you?”
I quail. “I—I’m sorry. I have an interview. I can’t pass it up—”
Randy turns puce. “You know you won’t get a red fucking dime if you leave now. You seriously walking out on me?”
I glance over my shoulder: Cailee and Greg shake their heads. Don’t you dare wuss out.
I turn back, my jaw hardening. “Yeah,” I say, trembling, and force my voice steady. “Yeah, I guess I am.” And pulling the spare rags out of my shorts pockets, I throw them down on the dock and brush past a shellshocked Randy.
I can’t help but grin as Cailee and Greg’s cheers echo in my ears.
Greg lets me borrow his Jeep for my drive back to Fort Lauderdale. More like my flight. The Jeep roars down the winding, elevated highways at a frenzied pace, and even so I’m barely within the two hours when I get there. I sit in the Jeep staring at the building for a long moment. It’s not like the other boxy, glossy-looking crew agencies lining Southeast 17th Street. This one seems old. Tucked away between other modern-looking storefronts, it reminds me of a toadstool shrinking from the heat, its modest terra cotta and stucco façade hailing from the days of Spanish colonialism. Above the door the words in Gothic typeface: LAIR YACHTING, INC.
How strange.
I inspect myself in the Jeep’s rearview mirror. My coal-black hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, my green-flecked hazel eyes only somewhat baggy from fatigue. I haven’t sweated through my crisp white polo, so that’s something. Hopping out, I smooth down the navy skirt I’ve hastily changed into. At least I look the part.
Let’s do this.
A bell tinkles as I slip through the door, and a stale dimness greets me. For a moment I stand there, eyes straining at the sharp contrast from the blazing sun outside. No lights are on in here, and the blinds of the large window fronting the street are fully drawn, casting the agency in a deep gloom. Have they moved? Are they even open? I squint to make out a waiting room with vintage posters of far-flung destinations on the walls. VISIT MOROCCO! VISIT ROMANIA! SEE THE CAVES OF SARDINIA! The last features an illustration of bats fluttering out into an evening sky.
I think, I have made a mistake here.
“Hello?” I hazard into the dark, forearms prickling.
“Miss Strand?”
I leap into the air, letting out a little shriek as I press a hand to the middle of my chest.
