Crossing Boundaries

He wore dark blue jeans and a crisp white shirt. His tan looked good and his grey streaked hair made him seem all the more mature. She couldn’t believe he was here in her parent’s house about to have dinner. Especially when she visualized his head licking her wet cunt between her spread thighs.

Dean moved out of the doorway and her heart stopped. What felt like a million punches hit her in her solar plexus.

“I’m sorry, Mrs Cox, but I brought a date with me. This is Kimmy,” he introduced the woman.

What the hell was happening?

“There you are. Come on down, Laura,” her mother called.

She moved past the guests and went straight to her seat in the dining room. Her dad was already seated and she took the seat to his right, hating her mum with every passing second as she sat Kimmy and Dean in front of her. Dean shook hands with her dad and she averted her gaze when he stared at her. She couldn’t do this.

Help me.

Dinner began and her nightmare started, Peter’s words haunting her.

“I’m so pleased you came, Mr. Riley,” her mother preened.

“Thank you for the invite,” he replied.

She was thankful to her dad for staying quiet.

“So, how did you two meet?” Her mum was awfully chatty tonight.

“At a conference. Dean was giving a talk on one of his books and he just snapped me up,” Kimmy, the blond beauty with the fake boobs and hot body, replied.

With every second, all the words and the loving he’d given her over the past month was reduced to nothing. His words had no meaning anymore.

As the dinner progressed, Laura pushed her food around her plate. She couldn’t stomach this. Her parent’s were constantly treating her like a child. Thoughts and ideas ran through her head. Was this Dean’s way of getting rid of her? Was Kimmy more than an acquaintance? She thought that with time Dean would learn to love her. He cared, she knew and understood that.

If she pulled out of college and worked full time at the library and took evening shifts at the diner she could make enough money to rent a small flat. As far as she was concerned, she wouldn’t be living with her parents for much longer.

“Laura!”

She turned to the sound of her mum’s irritated voice.

“What?” she asked, her voice sounding distant and hollow like the pain inside her.

“Dean was talking to you.”

Laura turned to him and waited.

“I was wondering if you’d managed to get any writing done while I was away?”

You f**king traitor.

She’d told him to never say anything about her writing.

“You write, honey?” fake boobs asked.

Laura glanced down at her plate of pasta. The pain and heartache she was feeling was too much. This was worse than any rejection any woman could receive.

“No, I don’t. Could I be excused?” she asked her dad.

“What for, love?” her dad asked.

“I promised a friend I’d help him out,” she explained.

“She can’t leave. We’ve got guests,” her mother said to her dad.

Laura closed her eyes as her parents began to argue. Every emotion for the past four weeks swamped her. The love she felt for Dean and the never-ending passion they’d shared. The secrets she’d kept from her parents and Peter’s sudden change in demands. She couldn’t handle it anymore.

“I didn’t ask for your f**king permission,” she screamed at her mum. Laura got up from her seat and blanked out what her parents were yelling. She grabbed her purse and coat and headed out into the night, slamming the door behind her.

The night air had a slight chill to it. Stars twinkled brightly in the sky and the tears she’d kept in for so long came out. There had never been any offering of anything more than sex. She knew that, she’d accepted it, but seeing how easily he’d moved on hurt more than she’d expected.

A hand on her arm stopped her. She glanced first at the hand and then at the owner of it. Dean stood in front of her. She hoped he saw the tears and the heartache she was going through. Although he had promised her nothing, the least he could have done was to treat her much better and told her he was moving on. Now she understood how quickly her life could change. She’d read so much in her short life and thought there must be time to assess every decision. The reality was it moved just as quickly as in the story.

Laura pulled her shoulder out of his grip.

“What are you doing?” he demanded.

“Going to a friend’s,” she gritted out. Even now she couldn’t refuse him anything.

“Please, turn around and go back to your parents,” he told her.

There it was again, the tone he used as if he was speaking to a child.

“I’m not going back there,” she told him and began walking toward the apartment Peter owned on the edge of town.

“Stop behaving like a child and do as I tell you,” he called after her.

Laura stopped. His voice dipped and she recalled with a quiver, what had happened the night he’d used the same tone. The dark hint of dominance and the call of submission he’d demanded. The dominance she’d asked for. That night not only had she given him everything her body had to offer, that very same night she’d given him her heart and her soul.

“You’re telling me what to do? she asked him. "You lost that right when you brought her back with you. Is this the way you end all your affairs? By breaking the women who love you? If you didn’t want me, all you had to do was say so.”

Dean walked in front of her. “It’s better this way,” he said.

“Why? Because you started having feelings for me?” she asked.

He didn’t dispute her point.

“That’s it. You can’t deal with the fact you can love someone besides your dead wife.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Fuck you,” she screamed and then she did something that gave her little satisfaction. She slapped him across the face. “I don’t want to see you anymore. Peter was right. You were using me.”

Laura didn’t wait for a response and ran. She knew her life would never be the same again and the only person she had was Peter.

Twenty minutes later she banged on his apartment door. The tears poured from her eyes and she knew she looked a mess.

Peter opened the door. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“You were right. He was using me,” she cried.

Her friend pulled her into his apartment and held her through her heartache. Peter didn’t say any condescending words. He held her as she poured out her pain, telling him everything.