Seasons of Desire

Gaelic Goddess-3

“Okay. So you came to me. How did you know I would be any better than the evil twins or Uncle Mark?”

“Because of your father. And your grandmother. And, much later, your mother.” As Tom blinked in confusion she explained. “Your grandmother, Mary, could tell soon enough that your Uncle Matthew was just as vile as your grandfather. So she put all her efforts into her second child, your father. Before she ran away, she gave Dougal the strength of will and character he needed to survive. For a while. I was sorry to hear of his death. Very sorry. I had put all of my hopes into him, you see? I had watched over him, silent and invisible at your grandfather's order, while I watched him grow. Every day I woke with the prayer that somehow both Mick and Matthew had died, and that Dougal now held my contract.

“When Matthew died, choking on his own bile, it was the happiest I had been in decades. By Nuada's Arm! If somehow I could have reached out to your father, convinced him to be strong, to ease his pain…but I could not.

“And then he died by his own hand, driven to despair by your grandfather's hate. If it was possible, I would have killed myself that day. But then I thought of you. Your grandfather had spoken of you, on occasion, and never well. So that gave me some hope,” she said with a wry smile.

“But then I heard you had taken his money and agreed to become a lawyer,” she stated angrily, eyes fierce with condemnation. “How could you? After seeing what he did to poor Dougal, how could you agree to follow that path?”

Tom raised his brows. “I bet on his death,” he said simply. “My father didn't leave us much. When Mick came to me with his offer, he was already in poor health. I made the gamble that he would die before I had the chance to work for him and have to take a case that would put me under his thumb forever.

“It was a close-run thing,” he acknowledged. “If the sick old bastard could have hung on for another six months I'd probably be as trapped as Dad was. But I am free and clear with a degree from a good school, and I can go into the branch of law that I really want.”

“Which is?” she asked, voice low and dangerous.

“Environmental law,” he said simply. “There are companies that are…are defiling our planet, for no more reason than that they are rich and the government has crippled itself. I can't fix the whole world by myself, but I can give it a f*****g good try.”

She smiled at him, and he found himself drawn to the dark pools of her glorious eyes. God, he thought, I could sink into them and drown.

“Care for the wide green world,” she said softly. “Now that is a noble purpose indeed.”

*****

Tom drummed his fingers nervously. Several hours had passed, but he had not grown used to Rhiannon's presence.

It wasn't that she was irritating, or drew attention to herself. It was that she was always there. Whenever he glanced up from his books, she always seemed positioned precisely in the right place to catch his eye.

He sighed and rubbed his face, smiling ruefully

If I can't deal with this for one afternoon, imagine how I will feel after forty or fifty years. What could the senile old prick have been thinking, to bind an immortal to his service? He's lucky they didn't turn him into a charcoal briquette.

Binding…

A contract runs two ways. What did it say?

He got up and went into the kitchen, where he poured himself a glass of tea.

“Rhiannon?”

“Yes, Tom?” she answered.

Well, at least I have broken her of this 'Yes, Master,' crap. Otherwise I would be thinking I was trapped in an old episode of 'I Dream of Genie'”

“You signed a contract. Do you still have it, or a copy?”

“Of course,” she said. “It is there on your desk.”

Tom blinked. He would have sworn the desk had been empty of everything except legal pads and empty bottles of Diet Mountain Dew. He sat down in his chair and began to leaf through the papers. Not too long, Thank God. He had heard stories of contracts that were as long and as indecipherable as dissertations on Marxist philosophy. This one, by contrast, seemed relatively short.

“What are you looking for?” she asked.

He swung his feet up so that his chair tilted back and his legs rested on the corner of his desk, only a good sneeze away from falling over backwards.

“A contract is an agreement between two parties. In this case, between yourself and my grandfather. You signed away your freedom. However, the second party, in this case the disgusting bastard who was buried yesterday, also had to agree to something.

“Even in the days when s*****y was legal in this country, slave-owners had certain responsibilities. They weren't written out in something as legally binding as a contract, of course, but they were still there. Food. Clothing. Some semblance of shelter. Somewhere in this contract has to be language that describes what Grandpa Mick was trading in exchange for your service.

“And if we can find out what it is, then maybe we can break it.”

Rhiannon's face lit with joy, and for a splintered instant he thought she would embrace him. But then the pall of despair fell back over her.

“My family looked, Tom. They could find nothing.”

“Your family,” he said loftily, “was not trained in the traditions of the American legal system.” He grinned. “I am. If it's there, I 'll find it.”

She nodded and walked away, aimlessly pacing between his kitchen and his small living room.

She doesn't believe me. No. She doesn't trust me. And why should she? All that she has known at the hands of my family is shame, betrayal and abuse.

A thought struck him. “Rhiannon,” he said, holding out his now-empty glass. “Could you fill this back up with tea, please?”

She took the glass from his hand and walked back to the kitchen, eerily silent. When she returned with his refill he looked her square in the eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, making sure his words were clear and distinct.

Her eyes widened as she stared at him. Her legs shook, and she abruptly sat down, collapsing onto the worn beige carpet.

“Stupid, foolish mortal,” she breathed. “What have you done?”

“What I had to do,” he replied. “I have power over you. Too much power. Power I don't want. If we are ever going to deal with each other fairly, we need to do so as equals.

“I can't make myself your slave. And I don't want to. But by thanking you, I have shown my trust in you. That you won't abuse the power you now have over me. As I hope,” he said softly, “you trust I won't abuse the power I have over you.”

Her lips trembled, and suddenly her eyes overflowed with tears. She sobbed bitterly, shaking, huddling on the floor.

Awkwardly, Tom slid off the chair and gathered her in his arms, trying to comfort her. Unsure of where to put his hands, he settled for stroking her back.

You could take her now, a disgusting, loathsome part of his mind chuckled. Was it him, or did it bear his grandfather's voice? You can e*****e a person by kindness as much as by cruelty. Treat her well, and it will be such a change from her prior life that she won't even realize she is still a prisoner.

Uncertain of what action to take, Tom hesitantly patted Rhiannon on the back as she sobbed into his chest, soaking his shirt with her tears. Her dark hair spilled over his hand as he tried to soothe her. Unwillingly, he noted that she wasn’t wearing a bra, and as she clung close to him, the collar of her shirt gaped open, allowing him to see deep into her cleavage.

To his discomfort and embarrassment, he found that he was growing erect inside his shorts. Her physical beauty and her emotional need spoke to a protective urge within him. Nervously, he tried to hide his arousal.

Go away, he told it angrily. The last thing she needs to see is me with a hard-on. It’ll just remind her of my grandfather.

He turned his body so that they sat side-by-side, his arm around her shoulders. Wiping her eyes, Rhiannon pulled away from him, and he let her go with a feeling of relief, adjusting himself quickly when she momentarily looked away.

“I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes with the tail of her t-shirt, momentarily exposing the flat curves of her belly. Tom glanced aside. The pale skin of her face was blotchy and flushed, and she was still heart-stoppingly beautiful.

“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “I think you’re entitled to a good cry every now and then. If I had spent nearly fifty years with Mick,” he continued, “I wouldn’t be crying. I’d be dead. Because I would have killed myself, like my dad.”

“Don’t talk like that!” she said fiercely. “If I had been capable of suicide, I would have. But it was hope that kept me from despair all those years. Hope that your father, and later, you, would be able to release me from this imprisonment.”

“Well, if I’m going to do that, I better get to work,” said Tom, reluctantly moving away from her. He sat down again at his desk and began to read.

*****

Three hours later, Tom slapped the contract on the desk with a grimace of frustration.

It was everything he feared it would be; clear in some places, maddeningly opaque in others, and disgusting throughout. It was comprehensive in how it detailed the ways in which Rhiannon was to be completely subservient to Mick’s desires. There was no act too petty, no degradation too small, no humiliation too great, that was not meticulously written down and made horrifically clear. It was obvious that he had seen a golden opportunity to impose all of his perverse desires on Rhiannon, and had not shied away from doing so.

If there’s a worse place than hell, I hope he's in it.

He rubbed his tired eyes with his hands. On the sofa, Rhiannon looked up from a book, face hopeful.

He shook his head. “Nothing yet, I’m afraid.” Her face fell. “I read the whole damn thing straight through, hoping something would jump out at me. I should have known better than to think it would be something obvious or easy.

“Later on tonight I’ll go through it one line at a time. But I don’t think that will do much good. Then I’ll read it through again. Sometimes if you can find…find the rhythm of a legal document, things that you don’t notice at first will fall into place.

“Right now, though, I’m going to take a shower. I feel like I’ve walked through a sewer.”

“Not a sewer,” she said softly. “Just his mind.”

“Like there’s a difference,” he muttered, and went into his bedroom and closed the door.

Thirty minutes later, showered, shaved, and dressed, he stood in front of the wasteland that was his refrigerator.

Should have had Mom help you with the grocery shopping like she suggested, he thought. Nothing but pot-pies, frozen pizza, and tater tots as far as the eye can see.

“Rhiannon, can I ask you a question?”

“Certainly, Tom.”

“Without being too crude about it, what are your…physical needs? Do you eat? Sleep? Will you need to use my…plumbing facilities?”

Rhiannon smiled, showing a dimple in her cheek. “I enjoy eating very much. It was the one physical pleasure that Mick didn’t take away from me. Sometimes he would take me out for dinner, when he wanted to impress someone. Of course,” she said, her face falling into shadowed lines, “those nights usually ended very badly for me.