Family Issues Ch. 10

"Helen, which part of Diana holding my dad's promissory note didn't you get? You don't know her if you think she won't take it out on him."

"I'll buy the promissory note. 125 K, right? No biggie."

"She won't sell."

"I'll give your dad the money, then. It's just a promissory note. If the indebted wants to pay, the person owning the debt must accept."

"First, my dad would never agree to that, and second, do you really wanna buy me?"

"What?" She pulled her hand out of his shirt and straightened in her seat. "What?"

"You're just like Nadine. She offered much more money, by the way."

"What? I'm...I want to be with you."

"And when people ask how we've met you'll say you bought me for the bargain price of 125K?"

"What? Jesus, Kev, I don't care about the stupid money. It's a gift."

"No one gives 125K as a gift."

She smirked. "Let me guess, your mom used to say that?"

"Stop it! Don't be mean. I want this just as bad as you do. But I want to come into this relationship with a clean slate. On equal terms. I don't want something like money to sit there between us."

She stared at him, her face was a mask of confusion and shock. "You can't be her boyfriend anymore, Kevin."

"Why not? I've faked it for six months. I can keep doing it."

"That's insane, Kev. You can't."

"And whose fault is that?"

"What?"

"Diana wasn't alone on this, she had an accomplice."

Helen thought at first that he was talking about Nadine, but then she remembered, and it felt like a fist to the gut.

"The night we met? Almost six months ago, I begged you to cut me some slack. Not metaphorically, I actually begged. I told you that you're not really leaving me any choice, and you told me to grow up."

"So this is what? Payback time? You're punishing me now?" Her voice trembled.

"Hell, no! I forgave you a long time ago when I understood how things worked between you and Diana. But you said something important that night. That adults need to own their shit. We'll own it, eventually. But you don't get to buy me, because I'm not for sale. I really love you, and I want to be someone you love, not a product you bought. Shit! Oh!" He cursed when he saw the first tear running down her cheek. He pulled her head towards his body. Helen pushed him away at first, but he started kissing her, and she was always desperate for his touch. "Hey. Hey. Don't." He wiped the tear; more were coming forth. "It's just a setback. I'll find a solution—I always do."

"How the hell are you supposed to come up with 125K?" she sobbed.

"I'm not sitting on my ass, Helen. You know me, I never quit. I'm like a little rhinoceros."

"How?"

"I'm attacking it from several angles. My dad's business' biggest problem is that he still thinks he's in the eighties. People don't visit electronic shops today when they can buy cheaper without taking their ass off the couch. I took a web-design course last semester. The project I've delivered was an e-commerce site for my dad. It's been running for four weeks, and already my dad's revenues have picked up." He stopped to wipe another tear. "I won't be working as a part-time diving instructor for the rest of my life either. I have only three courses left in this semester to finish my degree, and I have already sent my CV out. Got an interview next week with a company that does 3D gem simulations for the diamond industry in India. They've got an opening for a beginner software engineer." He wiped her tears again and kissed her. "It's a 75K salary; a nice start. I'll keep working on the weekends at the diving club. I also plan on taking gigs using platforms like Freelancer, offering my budding web skills." He tried to smile, hoping to lighten the mood. "I'm not lazy. I'll do what it takes."

"So when?"

"If I'm able to take out a loan, then in a year maybe? Probably less?"

"What? No! No way!"

"A year is a long time, Helen. My dad's business can pick up; Diana might be fed up with me. A ton of things can happen."

"You're proud, Kevin."

"Huh?"

"A seventy-year-old ex-landlord needs her washing machine fixed, and immediately you drop by her place, even though you owe her nothing. But God forbid anyone ever offers you help. You're proud and stubborn." She wiped her tear with her hand. "I'm not giving you up!"

"No one is giving anyone up. It's just a setback. Hey. Don't break my heart like that, Helen," he said tenderly. "Be a Valkyrie. I've got to do it my way or... You'll see, we'll be together. We just need a little patience."

"I'm not waiting a year or a month!"

There was stressed silence in the cab on their way home. Kevin tried hugging her and soothing with kisses, but she went back into that sad cave she sometimes holed up in. Her stress only grew once she shut off the flight mode on her smartphone and started getting emails and messages.

"What the...?"

"What happened?" Kevin placed a hand on her leg and rubbed it.

"This can't be right. Something...I gotta go to the office."

"Now?"

"Something doesn't add up."

"But you're officially on vacation until tomorrow. Diana is at the club today, so we have the entire house to ourselves till at least eleven. We can, you know..." He kissed her neck, and Helen closed her eye and breathed deeply. There was nothing she wanted more right now than diving under the sheets with Kevin in her big lonely bed.

"I gotta go to work, Kev."

---

The house was quiet, but his mind was a buzzing hive. Kevin almost caved in when Helen began crying, and he picked up his phone several times after they parted ways, to tell her he had changed his mind. Should he let her pay his father's debt? His father would never agree to take money from a stranger, but he wouldn't have to know the money came from Helen. Kevin could lie and invent a story. There were so many lies circling his life already; would another small one make such a difference?

He didn't want to wait a year, either, and he suspected that it might take longer. His credit score still sucked ass. There was little chance of getting a loan anytime soon.

For the millionth time since his mother's death, he wanted to call her and ask her what to do.

When in doubt, get busy. That was Kevin's modus operandi. He loaded the machine with the last batch of their vacation's laundry, shoved the previous batch into the dryer, and started folding dried shirts from the first batch. There was a knock on the penthouse door.

"Hi, Purple Eyes."

He stared at her, blinking stupidly. She was the last person he expected to see on his doorstep. She wore a long, slim, elegant purple overcoat, buttoned up to her neck. Hot, effortlessly.

"If the mountain won't come to Nadine, then Nadine will swallow her pride and come to visit Kevin. How was your vacation?"

"Super."

Nadine pulled out her cigarette pack. Despite the calm, predatory demeanor which was her modus operandi, her fingers shook, and she tucked the pack right in without extracting a cigarette. "You're planning on letting me stand here for long?"

"I...no, sure. Come in. Want something to drink?"

"I'm hungry." She wetted her lips.

"Diana is still at the club."

"Who gives a fuck?"

He coughed. "I can fix you something to eat."

"I'm not hungry for food." She entered the penthouse, scanning her surroundings. "So this is the Brion palace. Nice."

"Nadine, there is something—"

"It never happened to me before." Nadine stopped in the middle of the living room, hands on her hips. She looked around her, her face contorted into a snarl, like a lioness sniffing out another lioness' hunting grounds. Kevin wondered if she'd pee on the TV to establish dominance. "There's always a first, I guess."

"First what?"

"Men chase me; it's not the other way around, Kevin. I'm hot. This ain't right."

He nodded.

"I've been waiting for you to call. And waiting and waiting. Like a fucking deluded girl who waits for the guy to send her a message the day after he fucked her. I'm too old for these kinds of games."

"Nadine—"

"Tell your mom there is no heaven or hell, only the here and the now."

"My mom is dead."

Her hand went down and pulled out her pack again, then returned it to her pocket without extracting a cigarette. It was just a nervous tick. "It's a man-eat-man world. You gotta have the biggest teeth to take what you want; otherwise, you're screwed."

"It's not a man-eat-man world, Nadine, and you never took anything I didn't want to give."

"Because you like to take on your terms only. When you're fed up with that psychotic bitch who calls herself your girlfriend."

"I've been fed up with her from day one, and the only reason I'm with Diana is that you enabled her."

"You're an asshole, Kev."

He nodded.

"Nodding like a fucking garden gnome. Did you hear what I said?"

"What do you want, Nadine?"

She crossed the distance between them and grabbed his shirt. "Fuck you! You know exactly what I want."

"Nadine, things have—"

"I get it! Your parents fucked you up good." Her fingers trailed the curve of his neck. "You were raised by crazy religious care-bears. You're not special, Kev. We were all fucked up by our parents. Mine wanted to operate on my little sister and make her a woman. You're not special."

"I never said I was."'

"You can't be mine because of what I do. I get it. It's probably half the excitement. The fact that you're nothing like anyone I know." She sought his lips, but he turned his head away. "So here I am, on your terms. Again! Tell me what you want, Kev. Want me to beg? Is that what makes you hard?"

"Nadine," he said tenderly.

She opened the first button of her trench coat, then the next. They popped one after another, the little guardians of her caramel skin. Kevin gasped. Underneath she wore a see-through crochet beach dress and nothing else.

"Nadine."

"I'm crazy about you, Kevin. I'm in—" She caressed his cheek.

"Nadine, I'm so sorry."

"Don't get sorry, get naked."

He shook his head.

"Want me to help you?" She smiled and started lifting his shirt.

"Nadine, stop!" He raised his voice, and at last, she registered that something wasn't the same between them. Her smile froze, and her eyes squinted to slits.

"Things have changed," he said tenderly.

"Changed? Changed how? Ooh." Nadine's smile had nails, whips, and fire in it. "Helen?"

Kevin didn't answer; he didn't have to. She could read the answer in his blush.

"Just a friend, eh?" She smirked.

"I'm sorry."

"Diana knows?"

Kevin shook his head.

"Stupid me. Coming here, blabbering about... Did you enjoy the show?"

He tried to touch her cheek, but she slapped his hand, almost brutally.

"It makes sense. Helen's not a pimp like me. She's a decorated ex-marine, morally superior. Pure and brave with a conscience as spotless as Bill Clinton not having sexual relation with that woman. She just fucks her sister's boyfriend behind her sister's back."

"Nadine."

"She's not what you think she is, Kevin."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too." She buttoned her coat. "Marianne gave her my Lace Boys' card a few months ago. She's been a regular client since."

"That's a lie, Nadine."

"Is it?"

"Trashing her is beneath you. You have a beef with me; please don't take it out on her. "

"I don't have any beef with you, Kevin. In fact, I don't have anything with you. Have a nice life with your morally superior cyclops."

---

It took Helen one call to Ms. Lewinski to get the number. However, once she had it, she was reluctant to use it. She pressed all the digits but didn't touch 'Dial.' Her Samsung had hung like a failed exam in her car mount during the entire ride to her office. Once she'd parked, she picked up the phone and accidentally dialed.

"Hello?"

"S-sorry," she mumbled. "Wrong number."

"Helen?"

She hung up, heart pounding. Five seconds later, her phone rang. She stared at it like it was an IED with an itch. The concept of a relationship was new to her, but talking to Kevin's dad behind Kevin's back suddenly didn't seem so hot. What she had with Kevin was too precious to risk.

The phone went quiet, then started ringing again. Helen took a deep breath.

"Helen?"

"Who is this?"

"This is Finn O'Brien, you just called me." He had a tenor voice that was pleasant on the ears. He sounded nothing like Kevin.

"It's, it was a mistake."

"This is Helen Brion, right? I have a True Call application."

Crap. Technology bested her. "It was a mistake; I shouldn't have called."

"Helen, please don't hang up. Please." There was genuine urgency in his voice.

"Okay."

"Is everything okay with Kevin?"

"Sure. Kevin's...we've just returned home."

There was silence on the other end of the line. Finn was processing. Helen wondered how much he knew about the nature of Kevin's relationship with Diana. Kevin never spoke about his dad, and all she knew about him was that he owned an electronics shop and lived in a region that wasn't futanari-tolerant.

"Helen, is everything really okay with Kevin?"

"I..."

"Please. I won't judge, and I won't blame. I need to know the truth."

It was her turn to be quiet.

"It's just that he's become a professional in compartmentalizing. I never seem to get an honest answer from him these days. It's always, 'everything is okay, don't worry.' But I know him; I feel that something isn't right. Please, Helen, I promise I'll never say anything to him. I just need to know that everything is okay."

She took a deep breath. How could she tell Kevin's dad that nothing was okay? That Kevin has been forced into a relationship with Diana that he hated because he wanted to protect his father. That it was her fault. That she loved his son so much it hurt.

"Kevin speaks very highly of you, Helen. I think he admires you."

"I think he's...I admire him too."

"I've made some terrible mistakes with him in the past. Kevin used to hang with a bunch of people I didn't approve of. They were a bad influence. Instead of trying to understand and be supportive, I...my anger pushed him away. Since then he's learned not to trust me..." His voice broke, and he took some time to start talking again. "Sorry for being so emotional, but I'm worried about him. Is, is there a possibility to meet with you face to face, Helen? Just to talk. I'll come over; you say when and where."

"I..."

"Helen, please. Kevin is my only son. The only family I have left."

----

It was almost surreal entering the Richardson & Williams office after her vacation. It had been only two and a half weeks, but she felt like a stranger. Helen was in a good mood, though. The phone call with Kevin's father lifted her spirits. Finn O'Brien sounded like someone who was desperate to help his son. She already believed there might be a way out of their predicament.

"Oh my God, Helen? You look amazing." Jessica Bell, the senior analyst, intercepted her at the door. The older woman changed her attitude towards Helen after she had helped Jessica with the loan. Helen used to be excluded, by default, from any office social activities. Nowadays Jessica made sure to invite her whenever everyone at the office went for a drink. She kept her updated about her granddaughter's new shenanigans. She was almost motherly now, where once she'd maintained a professional distance, mirroring Helen's coldness.

"Oh my God, Helen. I didn't recognize you. Seriously! I asked myself who is this blond model, and what the hell is she doing here?"

"Worked on my tan." Helen smiled. "I have a hard time recognizing myself in the mirror too."

Jessica scanned her. "It's not just the tan."

"Huh?"

"Yeah. There's definitely an aura."

Helen laughed "Say what now?"

"An aura, girl. You're glowing," she gave her a conspiratorial wink and a tiny nod.

"What on earth are you on about?"

"Sure. Deny. You go, girl; seems like he was a mind-blowing experience."

He sure was, Helen thought. The office used to be her safest place. She felt appreciated and valued here. The reason she always burned the midnight oil and never took a vacation was that she loved being in this place. But she had been here for five minutes, and already she was thinking about Kevin and how she needed his presence. Helen felt like a stranger in her office, not because the place had changed in her absence, but because she had.

Her excellent mood took a deep dive when she scouted Suzan Owens in Marianne's office. The elder futanari and the Bay Area Purchase Manager were sharing a joke or something similar. Both looked smug. When Helen went past Marianne's office, Suzan lifted her head and gave her a tiny nod.

"What the hell is she doing here? The board meeting is in a month."

Jessica shrugged. "She's a shareholder, too, so I guess she can come whenever she likes. I've seen her a lot lately."

"And what business does she have with Marianne, anyway?"

Jessica shrugged again. "Dunno. I think they know each other personally."

"What makes you say that?" Helen remembered everything Kevin said about both Suzan and Marianne.

"Kind of obvious."

The shades to William's private office were down, and that was strange because she never remembered seeing them like that. William believed in transparency, literally. Helen was surprised to see a new face sitting at the secretary's desk in front of his office. A young black male.

"Hi, I'm Helen."

The young man nodded quickly. "Yes, Ms. Brion, of course. I know who you are."

Well, she guessed that was unavoidable. Just like they were given a crash course in operating the broken coffee machine on the third floor, new employees were probably briefed by their colleagues about the one-eyed Ice Queen. It never bothered her before, but now it stung. Another change.

"Is Tina not feeling well?"

"Tina doesn't work here anymore as far as I know." He smiled weakly. "I'm replacing her."

Helen didn't like changes. "William is in a meeting?" she asked

The young man shook his head. "Been like that since morning."

"Can I—?"

"He asked not to be disturbed."

"Tell him it's me and that's it's important."

"He asked not to be disturbed."

She didn't have the patience to argue. She merely knocked on William's door and entered when he answered. William Richardson, her boss, fifty years old, grey-haired but still very handsome, was staring idly out the window. He played with his Ka-Bar, his Marine combat knife from his service during operation Desert Storm in '91, flipping it in the air and whirling it around his right hand absent-mindedly.

"Hey, you look different." He smiled warmly when he turned and saw her.

"It's the tan."

"Sit down, sit down." He sheathed the knife, placed it in its rightful place on the desk, and pressed the intercom. "David, please bring two coffees, one for me, one for Helen. Three-quarter decaf extra hot soy latte with two equals." He looked at her. "Yes. You look...you look amazing. And all it took was two and a half weeks of a well-deserved vacation."

She nodded, smiling. Somehow everyone could see Kevin's kisses on her face. She liked it. "How are things around here?"

"Busy."

"Tina quit?"

He sighed. There were black circles under William's eyes. "I had to let her go."

"Why? What did she do?"

"Absolutely nothing. Don't ask. By the way, weren't you supposed to come back tomorrow?"

"I opened my inbox on the way home from the airport. Well, I read some updates that didn't make sense. I thought I'd just drop by to clear things up."

"What didn't make sense?" William's iPhone chimed, and he checked it. It was uncharacteristic of her boss. He took anyone engaged in a conversation with him and checking their smartphone as a personal affront. He once publicly shamed an employee who did it in a meeting.