Kerry's Raine

This is a story I wrote LONG ago, and shopped around to different editors/agents/publishers for about two years. I love this story, and have always been sad that only a very few people have read it, so I'm posting the majority of it here, chapter by chapter, to see what everyone thinks of it. Let me know won't you if you like it or not? 

New York City, 2008

  She was lonely, not for the first time in her life and she was sure it wasn’t going to be the last time either. Living in a city made it all worse somehow, feeling lonely in the midst of so many people, people that were out there in the world, experiencing life in ways she never had, never really wanted to. There were so many ways that she felt inferior to all of those people, and that just seemed to fuel the loneliness that grew inside of her.

  She wrote all of the time, beautiful stories of love, longing, of living and of the world that she tried so very hard to fit into. The only problem was she felt more at home in her stories than she did the real world, there she was free of everything that made her feel inferior. Her work sold well and there were many people that ‘knew’ her, asked her to parties, called themselves her friends even though they only saw the surface of what she was. Her work had become who she was in their eyes, and they were sure that she was content, and also they were sure she had a lover hidden away that was the inspiration for all of her novels.

There was no lover, no one she cared to view in that light even though there were more than a few men that tried to win her heart. Only she had no time for them, in part she worried that they would claim to be the inspiration for her work, and she had no time for braggarts. So she took only the lovers that had no idea who she was, and more often than not they were lovers for one night only and then they were gone.

Her family was gone, some passed on and some, well there were people in her world that no one could ever see her as being related to. Oh, with her success making her financially secure she sent them a check every month, they didn’t really want for anything. But she had to have them all sign agreements that they wouldn’t talk to the papers, the press or anyone else about her life and in her mind anyone you had to bribe to not talk was no one she really felt related to. She wasn’t close to them any longer and she had no desire to be.

She wasn’t totally alone, no, she had a few friends and they did their best to make sure that she knew she was loved. Her agent Nathan and his partner Chris were always inviting her for dinner, or inviting themselves over for ‘movie night’, and she didn’t know what she would do without the both of them in her life because they were the brothers that she had always wished that she had. Her best friend from high school, Summer was always calling, trying to convince her to move to Michigan and live in the small farm community out in the middle of nowhere so that they could see each other more often.

Looking around her apartment as she walked in after another night where she had felt out of place among the glittering throng of people that decorated every night spot in New York she wondered again what she was doing in this place, knowing that it didn’t feel like home to her at all. She stopped in front of the hall mirror, putting her keys on the hook under the mirror she stared into her own reflection, wondering if she would find some clue as to who she was, because the more the days flew by the more she doubted that she was anything at all except a voice for people to read when they needed something different from their own lives.

  To her she looked the same, there was nothing different about her and she sighed, smiling a bit at the woman before her. Her eyes were still the same pale blue that they always were, framed by long lashes that she was sure was her best feature. Her hair was black, the grey that was beginning to show covered religiously once a month by Chris, all the while he would tell her that she was too young for it, she needed to find something to liven her up and make the grey go away. Her face just edged towards round, far short of a classic oval yet not quite the perfect circle she dreaded it would one day become. Her lips odd, full lower lip, thin upper lip with one corner always curving down and the other up which caused people to think she was always on the verge of having a Billy Idol moment and would be sneering at any second. Her nose was almost too large for her face, yet even though she complained about it, and the little crooked part of it from having it broken long ago she refused to have it changed, it gave her character she supposed. She was short and close to full figured, not model slim and not overweight, just average and that was fine with her as she actually dreaded standing out in a crowd.

 As she stared in the mirror at herself she felt that familiar tingle in her hands and bit by bit flashes of a story began to spin in her mind. Smiling now she stood there, no longer seeing her reflection but lost in the whirl as a new plot began to form in her head. She never noticed the man behind her until it was too late and his hand was over her mouth, cutting off the scream as she felt his other arm hold her immobile.

“Are you smiling for me baby, I told you I would be back.” The voice, the breath hot in her ear as he whispered to her was all too familiar and she felt her heart skip a beat in fright. They hadn’t told her that he was out of jail; they were supposed to have told her!

She stood frozen as he rubbed the hand not holding her mouth over her breasts, knowing that if she fought he would just enjoy it more. The hand holding her mouth dug in cruelly, grinding her lips against her teeth as she shuddered with revulsion at the feel of him touching her. He was grinding himself against her buttocks and she could feel the hard bulge there as he shoved her against the wall, her face pressed into the mirror as he began to fumble with the fastening on his pants.

  “You are so glad to have your inspiration back aren’t you baby?” He panted in her ear, his breath smelling to her of death as her mind whirled, wondering what she was going to do now, how was she going to get away. “Daddy’s home and his little girl is going to be so happy once he shows her how much he loves her again.”

Something inside her snapped at his words, and she would never recall what happened next, all she would know was what the police and the crime lab decided had happened. She had taken self defense classes for years, no woman living alone in New York went without them anymore, and she had literally peeled his hands off of her while he was distracted with his zipper. Then she had grabbed the mirror on the wall and had smashed him over the head with it, shattering it. After that she had literally beaten him with the frame, almost killing him, the only reason she hadn’t was that the neighbors had heard her screaming and had called for the police.

  Later when Nathan and Chris arrived at the hospital where she had been stitched up from the cuts caused by breaking glass and treated for shock she was talking to the police. They were furious that she was speaking to them without an attorney after the ordeal but the New York’s finest that were in attendance were indeed some of the finest there were of the breed, talking to her gently and letting her try to fill in what blanks that she could. The break-in had been obvious and they had just wanted to know how she had overpowered a man that was twice her size, they let Nathan and Chris know that they never doubted for a second that she had been protecting herself.

When they finally left, she was almost sad to see them go, and was already fixing in her mind a story line about how wonderful and hard it would be to be them, although after the events of 9-11 there had been an incredible amount of literary work dedicated to the police and firefighters of the Big Apple. She didn’t realize that she was sitting there, her arms wrapped around herself and rocking back and forth until Chris wrapped her in his arms and Nathan began to cry.

  “Why is he my Father?” She finally whispered as the nurse came in to have her sign the discharge papers. “Why?”

  “I don’t know girlie, I don’t know.” Was all Chris could say as she signed the papers and he and Nathan assured the nurse that she wouldn’t be left alone, she was going to come home with them. She never had to go back to her apartment if she didn’t want to, which she assured them that she didn’t, she was putting it on the market as soon as possible.

  For what was left of the night she sat up with the both of them, or they sat up with her rather as she talked about the parts of her life she hadn’t told them up until then, having been afraid that they would have thought less of her if they had known. As the dawn finally rose in the sky and they bundled her off to bed she knew that they were more than friends, they were her real family, for they had understood and had been angry on her behalf, making her feels safe actually for the first time in a very long time.

When she finally drifted off to a restless sleep her two best friends looked at each other and sighed, knowing what they had to do to make sure their ‘little sister’ had the time she needed to really heal for once in her life. Several phone calls later everything was arranged, now the only thing to do was convince her that it was the right choice.

When she woke up, leaping from the bed as she ran for the bathroom to be sick and crying they were more convinced than ever that they were on the right track with their idea. As Nathan held her hair for her and Chris rubbed her back until the heaving had passed they talked to her about their plan, and they had her more than half convinced before she even quit crying that it was what she wanted to do.

When she finally looked at them, smiling over the fact that all three of them were kneeling around a toilet of all things, she had made her decision.

“Michigan?” She blew her nose on the Kleenex offered “Besides hang out with Summer and her family, what would I do there?”

“Well, you would miss us of course!” Chris made the funniest face, as though he was shocked that the thought hadn’t occurred to her already, making her laugh.

“Now that is a foregone conclusion my dear.” Nathan smiled as he got up from the floor. “Now, let’s all go eat food that will ruin our figures and plan this out shall we?”

“You know you need a house big enough for us to come and visit for weeks on end right?” Chris was saying as he helped her to her feet, Nathan leading the way to the kitchen in their roomy loft apartment. “That way we can go and visit all of those freshwater beaches Summer keeps trying to lure us there with. And then you know…”

The list of things went on and on as they watched her, taking hope in the fact that she really looked enthused about the idea and realizing that they were really going to miss her. It was time though, time for their little girl to have the peace of mind she could never quite seem to find in the city. Yes, it was time.

(Copyright protected, MPO 2008)