Only Consenting Adults Ch. 04

[Author's note: Anya's father's actions have put Jen on a collision course with her estranged parents. For Aidan, turning up on his wife's doorstep unannounced has led to a confrontation he didn't expect. They all need to work out how to deal with the past.]

---

ALPHA SUBMISSIVE

Henry grimaced. "How'd it go?"

"Not great," Anya replied, wrinkling her nose."

"How not great?"

"One a scale of zero to a hundred percent full-on Jen, we hit about two fifty."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"Where's she gone?"

Anya pointed back out through the doorway. "She's on her pedestal, in the hall. She's gone full alpha submissive, says the only way she's going to visit her parents is if she's commanded."

Henry's jaw worked, then he nodded.

"Okay, let me talk to her."

"Sure," Anya replied, "Give it a go. I'll be the one standing nearby with the fire hose. She's really fuming."

Henry headed for the door, but Anya stopped him, her hand around his wrist.

"I mean it. She's really fuming, Henry. This isn't standard Jen, this is, uh... way more."

"Okay."

Anya patted him on the arm.

"Good luck. If you're not back in thirty, I'll send out a search party."

Henry smiled ruefully back at her. "If I'm not back in thirty, don't bother. There won't be enough of me left to find."

He stepped out into the hallway, heading towards the front door. Sure enough, he could see a pair of knees on the edge of the pedestal in the alcove, and as he got closer the view revealed Jen's naked body in position one, kneeling with legs apart and her fingers interlaced behind her head. She was looking directly ahead, her collar around her throat and her black leather leash hanging from it.

"There you are."

Jen didn't reply or acknowledge his presence, her icy stare never wavering from its target on the opposite wall.

"You're gonna burn a hole in the paint."

Jen didn't respond.

"Babe, I'm gonna take the collar off so we can talk, okay?"

"You can do as you wish with me, sir."

Her tone was even, but Henry could feel the implication behind her words. Slowly, Henry reached up to her throat, tugging at the strap behind her neck. The collar fell away and he caught it. He took a moment to coil the leash up in his palm, then met her stare.

"Jen."

"Don't you start as well. You already talked to her, so let's just skip all that shit and get to the bit at the end."

"Which bit?"

"The bit where you tell me what's good for me."

"I wasn't going to do that, Jen."

"Yeah, sure."

"I was going to say that Moran called Anya. He's really sorry about getting in the news."

Henry shrugged. "I've never heard Moran that sorry about anything," he continued.

"Sorry, huh?" Jen replied, "That's no use to me."

"Then what is?"

"Nothing. Not a fucking thing. Do you have any idea how much more difficult this is gonna make things with Dad?"

Henry didn't answer.

"You know what Anya told me?" Jen asked, "When I asked her that?"

Henry shrugged, resigned to follow along in the conversation.

"She asked me who means more to me."

"That's not a fair question, Jen. I get it."

"Do you?"

"I know a thing or two about family, yeah."

Henry fell silent. Instead of speaking, he settled his hand on the rounded curve of Jen's belly.

"There's a part of me in there," he said at last, "And you."

Jen didn't reply.

"You know the story with my mother, right?"

He saw a flicker in her eyes, and continued.

"I told you, right?"

Jen didn't respond, but Henry reached up and gently pulled her hands away from the back of her head, down to her naked crotch, entwining his fingers with hers. Standing close, he met her gorgeous hazel eyes.

"You remember what I told you?" he prompted again.

"Yeah," she responded at last, "I do."

"Tell me. Say it back to me."

Another flicker passed across her features, and for a moment she hesitated.

"She's overseas, she raised you on her own. She's still there, and you came here."

"I want you to meet her."

Jen frowned. "Uh, okay."

"You're carrying her grandchild. I'm the only one she ever had. Our babies are the only grandchildren she'll ever have."

"I know," Jen replied, but her words were softer now, losing their hard edge, "I get that."

"My Dad, I never told you about him, did I?"

Jen shook her head, but he felt the way her hands grasped his.

"I tracked him down, years after he left us. It took me a year."

"You never told me that."

"I never told my mother either. It would have been too hard on her."

"So," Jen asked, "What did you find?"

Henry laughed, but there was no humour in it.

"Oh, babe, I found out that my father is a colossal bastard. When he left, I was too small to remember him, really. The way he treated my mother, the way he treated other people. I met him and we talked, and he explained that his parents had done the same. He blamed his father for fucking his life up, like he was just a victim."

Henry could feel himself getting worked up, his words becoming terse. Jen's hands were warm against his as she paid close attention.

"He made my grandfather out to be a hard man," Henry continued, "From a line of hard men, like it was...," he grunted, "Like it was some fucking hereditary disease."

He spat out the last words. Jen's eyes were narrowed now, watching Henry's emotions rising to the surface.

"I called him out and told him that was just bullshit. It's what he told himself to be able to sleep at night. I've never seen him since," he hissed, "My own father."

He was gripping Jen's hands tightly now, struggling to contain the old, familiar darkness.

"But maybe it's not bullshit," he hissed, barely above a whisper, and he broke eye contact, staring down at the ripeness of Jen's belly, "Maybe the fucker was right. Maybe...."

He touched the firmness of her skin.

"Maybe it all gets passed on, anyway, regardless of what we do."

Henry grimaced, his lip curling.

"Or maybe we aren't bound by it. Maybe tomorrow doesn't have to be the same as yesterday. Maybe the only reason for my life is to be the one that breaks the cycle."

He stuttered to a halt. When he found his voice again, it was raw with emotion.

"If it takes everything I have, I will stop the darkness from reaching my children. I'm going to break the chain."

Jen moved, wrapping her arms around him, and in relief he buried his face into the softness of her hair.

"I never told anyone that," he confessed.

"You should have," Jen whispered.

Henry encircled her with his arms and they were still.

"And I get it," she said at last, "About burdens. Believe me. I know I don't have to bear mine alone."

She pulled back, cupping his face in her hands. A sly grin crossed her face.

"I know what you're doing here," she murmured.

"Did it work?"

"You think?"

"Babe, that hurt like hell. It better have not been for nothing," Henry replied.

Despite himself, he smiled back.

"That was a hell of a speech, Henry."

"And?"

"Yeah, look, I was coming around to it anyway. We should go see them."

Henry exhaled loudly. "That took a lot of convincing."

"I needed a lot of convincing."

"Yeah, you're stubborn as hell."

Jen's eyes went wide and she feigned surprise. "Me? Nothing of the sort."

"Really?"

"Really."

Henry laughed. "You're sitting there on your pedestal saying that? You're the only person I know who'd drop into submission sarcastically."

Jen pouted. "Yes, sir," she replied.

---

Aidan sat on the bench in front of Harbinger's Home and Garden, checking the time. From his vantage point, he could see everyone as they came and went from the gym, a little further along the strip mall. He hadn't gone inside. It was too soon to face the people he'd worked with every day for years, right up until the point that he'd vanished suddenly a year ago.

Thinking back now, he felt awful about it. It had meant a mess for Rosa to fix, getting someone to cover his hours, another person to help her manage the gym, filling in the gaps that he'd left. Whatever his feelings about his wife, he owed the team better behaviour than that. His personal life aside, it hadn't been fair to them.

Too late now, he thought, watching a group of women leave; he recognised them as Rosa's spin class. There was a taller, older woman, her long grey hair platted in a tail behind her head. She was deep in conversation with a shorter woman, younger, with long dark hair. Just for a moment, his breath caught, seeing the similarities, but it wasn't Rosa. The woman moved differently. Maybe Rosa moved differently now, too? Would he still be able to tell it was her from a distance just by the way she walked?

The women dispersed and for a long time there were no more comings and goings. The shadows began to lengthen, stretching across the car park. Not dark hair, he reminded himself, blonde now. She'd dyed it; he hadn't noticed when she'd answered the door because it was tied back, but it had been on her socials, on the picture of her and Davey by the lake, he thought grimly. She'd gone blonde and found herself a new man.

A figure emerged from the gym. She bent down at the doors and locked them. Aidan's pulse quickened, and he sprang up from the bench to approach her.

Rosa crossed the car park to her car. It was still the same one, a year later, and Aidan plotted an intercept course. He observed her as she walked, seeing differences, little things that were alien to him. The long, blonde hair was one change, caught up with a hair tie in a loose ponytail. She looked thinner, smaller somehow. Where before there had been curves, now the body in front of him in her activewear was leaner. As he got closer to her, he could see that she'd lost weight. She reached the car when he was still a distance away.

"Rosa!" he called out.

The figure of his wife froze, her hand on the door. She turned. Her brows furrowed in puzzlement.

"What're you doing here?"

Aidan staggered to a halt in front of her, suddenly lost for words. Unlike the apartment, when she had hidden herself behind the door and Davey had been able to interject so easily, here she was in the open, facing him. Too late, he began to consider how this might look from her point of view.

"I'm just," he began, raising his hands to calm her, "I just want to talk."

"Here?" she gaped, "In the middle of the carpark?"

"Wherever you want. Here, anywhere," he replied, "I just want to talk to you."

Rosa regarded him warily, looking around. She seemed nervous.

"Hey, it's only me. You're okay."

Her eyes snapped back to him, hostile, unsettling him.

"Rosa," he began, warily, "Look, I'm sorry if I surprised you. I can go, and we can talk another time. I'm sorry. Maybe I should have waited."

He fell silent, waiting for his wife to respond, but she continued to stare at him. Gradually, her shoulders seemed to loosen.

"No," she said, "It's okay."

Aidan found himself nodding in agreement, waiting for her to make the call. She opened the car door and looked up at him, nodding at the passenger side before she got in. Aidan hurried around the other side of the car, half expecting to hear the doors lock and the engine start, but when he pulled the door handle it opened. He slid into the seat.

Looking across at Rosa, he was struck by the oddness of it all. He had always driven, looking across to the passenger seat at the achingly beautiful dark-haired woman he'd built a life with. Even in the depths of despair, as the fertility cycles didn't work, he would always look across at the other seat and a little part of his heart would melt.

The woman sitting behind the steering wheel felt like a stranger. The face was familiar, but thinner somehow, framed by blonde hair. The rich, dark brown eyes were the same, but there was a veil now before them.

"You wanted to talk," Rosa said, "What about?"

Her tone was business-like, even abrupt, and Aidan stalled. There had been a point, mid-flight from Tokyo with Indi fast asleep on his shoulder and a couple of red wines in, that he'd imagined this moment, playing over and over in his head what he was going to say.

In his version of reality, he would look into Rosa's eyes and there would be that spark, like there always was, that kindled fire that could be fanned back to life. He'd imagined there would be a look between them, and honesty, and, yes, difficult words. He'd imagined Rosa gently saying she was sorry and in return Aidan would acknowledge the hurt he had caused her and say sorry too for leaving. On the plane, in the dark, at the limit of exhaustion, it had all seemed easy.

But there was no spark in Rosa's eyes. The woman sitting next to him was appraising him, still trying to determine if he was a threat to her or not. He tried to settle himself, and just the act of moving his bulk in the seat seemed to make her tense up. He wanted to reach out and take her hand, but the look in her eyes told him not to. Aidan took a deep breath, suddenly overwhelmed by the sadness of not being able to touch his wife. Talk, just say something, he told himself. If it's not what was planned, at least just talk, start a conversation.

"You changed your hair," Aidan began, prompting a withering look from her.

"Observant."

You look thinner, he thought, you look troubled, but he knew he couldn't say that.

"Rosa, look. We have things to discuss. I don't know where you want to start, but...."

"You mean, like details? Sure. Where do you want me to begin? You want to talk about the business first, or maybe the car? What about the apartment?"

She was cold, emotionless.

"Is that why you came back, Aidan?" Rosa asked, "To sort out the details?"

The way she said it brought it all back, suddenly: the conversation in the car, setting up that last bet, the way Rosa was bulldozing forward with it as he drove them home, never stopping to consider what he wanted. That fucking stupid bet, the one that led to the hall pass. She'd cashed it in, fucking a guy from a coffee shop on the other side of the city, just to prove a point. He should have stopped her. He should have told her that enough was enough. All this could have been avoided with just two simple words.

"No, Rosa."

"Then what?"

"No."

"What?"

"I'm not doing this."

"Doing what? Why the fuck are you here?"

Aidan met his wife's stare, but he didn't flinch. There were things he needed to say, regardless of the consequences.

"I thought I knew, Rosa, all the way back from the other side of the world, in the cab on the way to the apartment, even up to the front door, all the way up to the moment Davey showed his face in our apartment like he owned it."

He could feel the anger below the surface, but he kept it in check.

"You found someone else," Rosa interjected, coolly, "And so did I."

Aidan's control slipped, just for a moment, but by then, it was too late.

"I left her behind," he snapped, "I came back here. I realised that we still have things to resolve, you and me."

"Like what? Like our assets?"

"Fuck the assets, Rosa. Fuck the apartment, and who gets what," he rasped, "There are more important things. That's what I'm talking about."

"And what are you talking about, Aidan? How about you tell me what's important?"

Her eyes were wide, flashing with resentment, and Aidan realised he was trapped with nowhere else to go.

"The real things," he gasped, "You and me, Rosa. The... the last embryo."

Rosa's face went white, her eyes fixed on him, mouth opened but stunned into silence. Finally, he caught the tiniest glimpse of the woman behind the mask. It was happening again, the scene from a year ago, in the kitchen, her standing so prettily in her summer dress about to walk out the door to commit adultery, and Aidan rooted to the spot, trapped, unable to say the words that would stop her. History was repeating itself, now, in the car a year later, facing the real Rosa at last. Here was the woman who would not back down a year ago, who flew them both into the side of the mountain rather than pull up from the nosedive.

"I should have said no," Aidan croaked, his mouth suddenly dry, "A year ago, I should have said that you win. I should have stopped it all, instead of daring you not to go through with it. I'm sorry."

Aidan swallowed hard. He'd said it.

"I should have been the bigger person. I shouldn't have just let you fall. I'm sorry for leaving you like that. I wish I had done things differently. That's why I'm here, Rosa. I came back from the other side of the world to tell you that."

He searched her eyes, looking for a sign that his words had registered with her, but her face remained frozen in astonishment.

"Say something," Aidan said.

Rosa let out a long, slow breath, blinking rapidly, sinking back into the car seat.

"The day you went," Rosa said, her voice soft now, "I came back early to our apartment. I had a surprise for you, I had it all planned out. I wanted to make you see. I was so excited, and then I got to the door, Aidan. Our bedroom door. I saw your note."

She ground to a halt, but before Aidan could speak, she seemed to find the strength to continue.

"When you left, you put me on hold. My life has been on hold ever since. I don't really go out. I know I won't fall in love. When I'm alone, I just sit there. Sometimes I get out that damn video you made, remember? The one with me suspended from the ropes in the gym. I watch it very closely. I found it, finally, after watching so many times. The exact moment that Rosa disappears and I'm all that's left."

Aidan reached out, but Rosa withdrew her hand.

"Davey said you had a breakdown, Rosa."

Rosa nodded. "Or as near to one as makes no difference. I don't know. I just couldn't cope. It all seemed endless, pointless. Who the hell would want this broken body?"

"How're you doing now?" Aidan asked, gently.

He chanced a smile at his wife, listening to her as she finally began to open up, letting her defences drop at last. He allowed himself the faintest glimmer of hope that his long trek back home hadn't been a lost cause after all.

"Okay, I think. Arly was a big help. Davey too. He's looking after me now. He says I'm doing better, or I was, up until you arrived."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to... I thought...."

"I'm getting better," Rosa interjected, as if she hadn't heard him, "Davey's found a treatment that's helping."

She lapsed into silence again. Aidan had more that he wanted to say, but Rosa didn't seem interested anymore, her attention turned in on herself, on her own thoughts. He found himself waiting for her to surface from her ruminations.

"So, you left Mara Fey, the Hollywood superstar?" Rosa asked.

"Yeah."

"Funny, I thought the next time I saw you would be in photos with her, walking down a street somewhere, arm in arm. Instead, you came back alone."

Aidan tensed, but Rosa detected the change in him. He found himself looking into her eyes again, dreading what he needed to tell her, of how it would be construed by Rosa. Not being open with each other has destroyed them, he realised. He owed her the truth.

"Rosa, I... that's not true. I don't want to lie to you."

"Lie? How?"

"I did come back with someone."

"Who? A girl?"

Aidan gritted his teeth. "Yeah," he said.

Rosa sagged in her seat. "Ah," she muttered, "So, that's how it is. You ditched Mara Fey for someone else."

"No, she's not my girlfriend. It's hard to explain."

"Are you sleeping with her?"

"No. I rescued her from a situation. I had to help her."

Rosa regarded him closely. "So that's really why you came back, is it?" she asked.

"Rosa, I... no," Aidan replied, struggling, "I came back because I had to. There was nothing else I could do."

"You always had a choice, Aidan. For example, you chose to abandon me when I needed you."