Who Knew?

"Sometimes that boy does the stupidest things," said his dad. It was then that I realized how right my Aunt was to be angry at me. I also realized just how much Josh loved me. I'd expected him to do the very real, very human thing of lashing out at the source of his pain. I'd thought that he would run back home to his parents and tell them about the terrible things I'd done to him. But he hadn't. Josh hadn't told anyone why we were no longer together. Even after the way I'd hurt him, he'd let them think it was his fault. Even under these circumstances he didn't want anyone to think less of me. It was like he was still trying to protect me even now. And his telling my dad that I'd need someone to make sure I was okay, and getting him to send Aunt Sally only proved it all the more.

I couldn't continue to sit in that house. I started crying and ran away from my in-laws. I went home and just sat in my room crying for the next two days. Finally my Aunt Sally came in to talk to me. Where the rest of the family had been polite if cold, Aunt Sally was strict and truthful.

"Shut up," she said. "Stop, all of that God damned crying." I was expecting her to close out the sentence with 'bitch'.

"It's so hard for you, isn't it?" she asked. "Think about it: you're here with your family around you and everyone kissing your ass, trying to make you feel better. None of this would be necessary if you'd been smart enough to keep your God damned legs closed or just to say the simple word, 'No'."

I just looked at her through my tears.

"The person I feel bad for is Josh," she said. "He's out there, all alone, in a strange new city. His heart is broken and he has no one to talk to about all of this. He had no control over this situation. You blindsided him with this shit and he has to go through it ALONE. So Brianna, why are you crying?"

For the first time I thought about what Josh was going through. My heart actually hurt that I had caused that much pain for the man I loved. For the entire time that this situation had been playing itself out, actually for most of my life, I had known one unshakeable fact: that Josh loved me and that no matter what else happened, we'd always have each other.

I suddenly realized that my whole life really had no meaning anymore. I had no reason to continue. Everything that I wanted and hoped for couldn't happen anymore. Our dream of Josh either making it big in photography or us owning our own photo studio wouldn't happen, or if it did I wouldn't be a part of it. The same was true of my dreams of Josh and me growing old together and traveling after our kids had grown up. That was an even bigger blow, because not only would I be growing old alone or with someone else, but Josh and I wouldn't have any kids together.

It got even worse when I realized that throughout my life, starting back in school, I'd met a lot of men, but very few of them treated me like Josh had. My Aunt had hit it on the head when she was talking about the differences between Josh and Sonny when it came to sex. It wasn't just about sex, it was about life in general. Josh always made me feel special, but it was more than that; he made me feel protected and cared about and...loved.

I hadn't met very many men like that in my life. I was sure that there weren't very many of them. There were probably far fewer of them who would even feel that way about me. And the list narrowed even more sharply when you took into consideration the fact that it also had to be a person that I loved as well. Putting all of those facts on the table made my options and my plan going forward amazingly clear. It was enough to make me dry up my tears and focus on what I had to do.

There was no denying it. I had to get my husband back. No matter what it took, I had to get Josh back.

"You're right, Aunt Sally," I said. "This is all my fault. I don't have time to sit here crying. I have things to do." She looked at me again like I was crazy.

"What exactly do you have to do?" she asked.

"I have to find my husband and get him back," I said. Just thinking about it made me smile. I knew it would take a lot of work and probably a lot of time, but I was making it my life's mission.

My brother came into the room then. He looked right past me as if I wasn't there and spoke to my Aunt. "Aunt Sally, could you please tell HER, that there's a woman at the door," he said.

"Why can't you just tell her yourself?" asked Aunt Sally. "She's right here," but my brother just turned and left.

I walked out of the bedroom into the living room and went to the door. There was a girl standing there. I guess maybe she was considered a woman. She looked like a college student. She had on big sunglasses and was carrying a clipboard with a couple of file folders on it. She was chewing gum and she just looked bored.

She had light brown curly hair that was up in kind of a bun. She was tall and slim with small breasts and nice hips. Her legs were extremely long and thin. She looked like every other college student. Even though I was only twenty three then, she made me wish I was younger. As I approached her, she lifted her giant sunglasses and took a look at me. She had really pretty eyes but everything about her spoke of boredom. I was sure that she was going door to door interviewing people for some stupid class project. I decided that I should kick my brother's ass for setting me up for this shit. Anyone in the house could probably have answered her questions.

"Are you Brianna Kent?" she asked.

"No," I said. "My name is Brianna McVay. I haven't been called Kent in more than three years."

"Are you sure?" asked the girl. She rolled her eyes and hissed, "Fucking lawyers." Then she looked at me and asked, "Would you mind showing me some ID, please?" I went and got my driver's license and showed it to her.

"Shit," she said. "Sorry to have bothered you. Um, I'll be back."

I turned around and looked at my aunt. "Was that a process server?" she asked. "Boy, the guy who served your uncle didn't look like that." I looked and saw that my brother's tongue was hanging out of his mouth as he watched the girl's ass twitch on her way back to her car.

"Was that a what?" I asked.

"Maybe you could do that instead of hooking," said my brother. "But you probably wouldn't, because you wouldn't get to take off your clothes."

"I'm not a whore," I screamed at him.

"I'm sorry, you're right," he said smugly. "Whores get paid for having sex. You got paid for doing massages. You did them naked and threw in the sex for free, my mistake. Besides you're not built nearly as well as that woman."

"My tits are way bigger than..." I began. Then I just stopped. My brother had already made up his mind. If he wasn't on my side, I had nothing to prove to him or anyone else."

"Brianna, you're taking this far more calmly than I'd have thought," said my aunt, while my brother just glared at me. "Can I see the papers?" she asked.

"What papers?" I asked her.

"Didn't she just serve you divorce papers?" asked Aunt Sally. It all came crashing down on me then and I just slumped to the floor.

"No!" I said. I just sat there on the floor and stared. Then I ran into the bedroom and started packing my things.

"Where are you going?" asked my aunt.

"He can't divorce me if he can't find me," I said. "If I stay away long enough for him to calm down and let the hurt go away, maybe I can explain this to him and talk him out of making the biggest mistake of our lives."

"Josh already made the biggest mistake of his fucking life," said my brother from behind us. I looked past my aunt. I couldn't believe that my brother was supporting me, when just a few moments before he's been calling me names. I guess blood is thicker than water. When he saw what Josh was trying to do, he came down on my side after all.

"Josh is just hurt," I said. "He doesn't see that the divorce is a mistake," I smiled.

"Um, I'm not talking about the divorce," he smirked. "The biggest mistake Josh made was marrying a whore. He's just finally coming to his senses, but you are right to get out of town before anyone around here knows what you are."

I didn't say anything I just continued packing. I realized then that coming home had been a mistake, too. My aunt looked down on me and my brother seemingly hated me. I guess in my aunt's case it made sense. She knew first-hand what Josh was going through. She'd come back to live with us after my mother died because her husband had cheated on her. She'd divorced him and gone to live with her brother, my dad.

I couldn't understand though why my brother seemed to hate me so vehemently. I also didn't really care. It just went to prove something that I'd really known all along. The only person I needed to justify anything to, is the only person who really loves me: Josh. Everyone else could suck it.

My aunt wondered why I didn't want her to drive me home. I took a bus because I was just tired of being around people. If they couldn't help me find Josh I had no use for them. I also realized when I almost got the divorce papers that I was going to need some money. I was going to need serious money. I intended to fight the divorce. Josh was not going to get away from me if I could help it. I just didn't know how I was going to get the money I needed.

I got off the bus at the Greyhound station and took a local bus, dragging my suitcase all the way. When I stepped back in the apartment, I started crying again. It felt so empty being there without Josh. I kept expecting him to come in and tell me about his day at any second. Then the phone rang and shattered the silence. I picked it up tentatively since I didn't recognize the number. It was from inside the city. I knew that because it was a local area code.

The voice was so scratchy that I didn't recognize it at first. "Tasti, is that you?" he asked. I realized that it was Sonny.

"What do you want Sonny?" I sneered into the phone. "I can't believe you have the balls to call me after what you cost me." All I heard was laughter. It started out as laughs and then morphed into a coughing fit.

"You need to come and see me Tasti," he said. "We need to talk."

He gave me an address and I wrote it down. Since he also gave me a room number, I figured he was in a hotel.

"Why do I need to come and see you?" I asked. "What do we have to talk about?"

"We need to get our stories straight for the police," he said. "There are certain things you can't say if you want to keep breathing. Besides, we may have to help each other. I've figured some things out."

I went to the address he'd given me. It wasn't a hotel at all. It was a hospital. I went to the front desk and gave his room number. The nurse there gave me directions to his room. When I saw Sonny, I was shocked. My mouth dropped open. Maybe I'm a bad person but I didn't feel sorry for him at all.

Sonny was lying in a bed with tubes sticking all over him. It had been more than a week since we'd seen each other but he still had bruises all over his face. He also had a nervous tic. Every so often he'd jerk his head to the side and when he did it...it really looked like it hurt.

His hands kept moving and he looked at them occasionally, as if he was having trouble controlling them. I later learned that he still had very good control over his hands.

His lips, or I guess I should say his fat lips, spread out in a smile when he saw me. "Hey, Tasti," he smiled. "It's a shock isn't it?" I'd been under the impression that the scratchy timber to his voice had been due to the telephone, but it wasn't. Apparently his vocal chords had been injured too and it changed his voice.

"Close the door. We have to talk about some things and we need privacy," he said. I did as he requested and we were alone behind the door. The monitors and various machines all reported to the nurse's station and would alert the hospital staff if anything bad happened to him.

"That fucking Gorilla did a number on me," he said. My eyes narrowed and I started talking before my brain caught up with my mouth.

"He's not a gorilla, and you deserved it," I hissed.

"I knew it," he said. "I might just come out of this okay after all. I wondered why there hadn't been a follow up visit. I also wondered what he'd done to you. But your reaction just now, and the fact that even though you look like your fucking dog just died you're totally unscathed, tells me that I'm on to something." He smiled and he was just as cheesy as he'd always been.

"That guy was your fucking husband," he spat. He started laughing in relief. "Oh, my God, I have a chance. My life may not be over."

"What the fuck are you talking about you cancerous parasite?" I snapped at him.

His eyes widened and he looked afraid. "Please don't call me that," he said. It looked as if he was afraid of me. I snickered and then just slumped down in a chair.

"What's wrong Tasti?" he asked.

"You're what's wrong, you asshole," I snapped. "You ruined my life. All I ever wanted was to be with my husband Josh. Someday he's going to be a famous photographer. Even if he doesn't make it and we lived in a one room shack, I love him and I just want to be with him, but you took that all away from me. You ruined my life."

"I ruined your fucking life," he spat. "What did you have? A shit hole apartment and barely any clothes?"

"Okay, you were in love, so what. A lot of people are in love and they get broken up every day. I was in love with my wife, too. She ran off with some younger guy because he had more hair than I do. It happens. You never saw me crying over that bitch did you? I moved on and you should too."

If he hadn't been in a hospital bed I'd have hit him. We both calmed down and took a breath. "Anyway, maybe we can help each other," he said. I looked at him suspiciously; I just didn't trust him.

"Look, I told the cops that I didn't know who did this to me," he said. "I told them some guy that I'd never seen before just started wailing on me. I told them that I was blindsided and didn't get a good look at him. Sooner or later they're going to want to talk to you too. They have one of those all points thingies out on you, now. You're not a suspect; they just want to talk to you. If you tell them the same thing that I did, it'll die down and become just a random ass beating. Maybe they'll think it was a case of mistaken identity. That way they never start looking for your husband."

He looked at me as if he was measuring my response. "It was him, wasn't it?" he asked. I didn't nod or shake my head I just kept my face neutral.

"Tasti, I'm in a lot of pain right now. When he threw me across the room and I hit that cabinet he broke my back. They say I'll never walk again. I was lucky to retain the use of my arms. I've never seen that kind of rage in a man who was sane before. Even the guys I'm used to dealing with -- the leg breakers and the hit men -- don't do things like that. They keep all of the emotions out of it. They just do the job and move on.

"What scares me the most is that you must be psychic. Do you remember what you said to me about us fucking? You said that I'd regret making you have sex with me, and I really do regret it. The problem is that I took a loan from some really big guys to start my business. I owe them five movies and they're not the kind of guys you don't deliver to. I really thought that they'd sent that guy to break me up because they thought I wasn't working on them.

"Now that I know that it was just your husband that gives me time to get them their product and move on with my life. So if you don't say anything to the cops about the 'extras' during the massages and what goes on in the back room, I won't say shit about your husband. Do we have a deal?"

I considered it and finally, since I couldn't see any way for it to hurt Josh or myself, I agreed.

"So with hubby mad at you I guess you won't be coming back to work, will you?"

"Sonny, Josh left me," I cried. "He's going to try to divorce me and I'll just die if he does. I need to make money to fight off a divorce, and I need even more money to try to track him down and get him back."

"I can pay you a little bit more to come back to the massage parlor," he said. "But when you talk about lawyers and tracking people down, you're talking serious money, Honey."

He looked at me and started smiling. "I could probably help you to get it, but it would really depend on what you were willing to do."

"Sonny, look at my face, not my tits," I snapped. "I would be willing to do anything on earth to get Josh back."

Two days later I was back working at the parlor. It had been business as usual and Sonny was running the place over the phone. He was funneling all of the special customers through me, so I was making more money. I still barely had enough money to pay the rent on the crappy apartment though. There was no money for lawyers or P.I.'s.

Sonny called me and asked me to come to the hospital. I wondered what the hell he wanted but I went. I was surprised because he was sitting in a wheel chair.

"I thought that you'd be in the hospital for a few more weeks at least," I said.

"Fucking doctors," he snapped. "They know everything about keeping you alive and absolutely nothing about life. If I'm stuck in here for a few more weeks I'll end up with a bullet in my head as soon as they let me out. They got me doped up so good that I don't feel anything. I have to get back to work."

"Anyway," he said, "how would you like to make some lawyer money?"

"What do I have to do?" I asked.

"Nothing serious," he said. "Just take a few pictures."

"No," I said. "Hell no. Not a chance. Listening to you was what got me into this position in the first place. I really shouldn't even be working at the parlor, but I have to eat and have a place to stay."

"Okay, Tasti," he said. "I was just trying to throw some money at you. If you change your mind, let me know."

I went back to the apartment. I couldn't bring myself to call it home. Home for me was wherever Josh was. I sat down on the chair that I had pulled from the kitchen and just stared into space. I wondered where Josh was and what he was doing. I hoped that he was thinking about me. Then I had an evil thought. He'd better not be with some other woman, because if he was....

While I was imagining what I was going to do to her, my buzzer rang. I spoke into the intercom and asked who it was.

"Land shark," said a voice.

"Who?" I asked.

"Look lady," said a male voice. "I got a delivery for you. Do you want it or not?" I pushed the buzzer and waited. A few moments later there was a knock at my door. I opened it, expecting to see a delivery man and the bored college girl stood there. She was still chewing her gum and still looked bored. She didn't have the giant sunglasses on but she cracked the gum as she looked at me. "Gotcha," she said. "And this time they got the names right." I was in shock.

"Brianna Kent, right?" she asked.

"Nope wrong again," I said. "Remember I showed you my ID? Let me get it." I ran and got my wallet so I could show her that she'd gotten the name wrong again.

"See my license clearly says, Brianna McVay," I smiled as I showed it to her.

"Gotcha, Granny," she smirked. "You've been served." She stuck a packet of papers in my hand, cracked her gum one final time and wandered off. I expected my brother to jump out and lean over to watch her ass moving as she walked away. I stood there with the door open and the papers in my hand. There was no way I could just sit back and let my marriage die. There was a card from an attorney, paper-clipped to the folder. He seemed to come from a very pricey law firm. The only way to fight a lawyer was with my own lawyer.

I picked up the phone with my hand trembling. "Sonny," I spat into the phone, "how much does the photography session pay?"