Difficult Questions

“Okay.” Suzie said. “First question.” The way she said it gave Scott a bit of pause.

“First time you ever had sex.”

“That’s not a question.”

“There’s an implied when, who, where, how and why in that statement Scott.”

“You seriously want to know?”

“Yes.”

Scott thought about it, he didn’t want to tell her the truth, but he didn’t want to lie to her either.

“Well?” She asked.

“Look, it’s not easy to talk about.”

“Oh shit, Scott, if it’s something bad you don’t have to answer.”

“No, nothing awful, or criminal, well maybe criminal. . .”

“If you really don’t want to tell me, you don’t have to.”

Scott exhaled, she would probably find out sooner or later.

“I was 16, at the trailer, with Martha.”

“Your Mom?” Suzie blurted out.

“She’s not my mother Suzie.”

“Yeah, I know. . . shit.”

“You want to know more, or leave it at that?”

“If you are okay telling me, I’d like to hear more.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, my imagination is already running pretty crazy with it, the truth is probably better than what’s in my head.”

“She was in a bad spot, doing ****, drinking, I was a horny 16-year-old and the couch had broken, we were sharing a bed.” It happened so long ago, Scott said it all quickly, with little feeling.

“Did she. . .?”

“I initiated it, she was pretty wasted, but she knew it was me. We did it again the next morning, and a few more times after that.”

“Fuck Scott, you know that’s statutory ****, right?”

“I know Suzie, but it wasn’t like I was unwilling, I was initiating it.”

“And it stopped?”

“Yeah, she stopped it, we got a new couch and she told me we couldn’t be like that, that it was wrong. I think she still blames herself for it.”

“I. . . I don’t know what to say, Scott.”

“Good, nothing needs said, it just is.” Scott hoped she would take the hint, he was still very protective of Martha, she was the one person that had always been good to him, even though she was a wreck herself, she had been good to him. The quickest way to get him angry had always been through Martha.

“Okay, second question.” Suzie continued, her voice less confident. “Best sex you’ve ever had.”

“Easy, last night.”

“Ooh, good answer, conviction and no hesitation, a very convincing witness.” She squeezed his muscles a little harder and leaned over and kissed him on his shoulder.

“How about before that?” she asked.

“Is this question #3?”

“You know what, with how well you answered #2, yes, this is a new question.”

“That would have to be Lydia, my 18th birthday.”

“What, Lydia, your cousin?”

“Do you know that we aren’t actually related?”

“Fuck. I mean, I’ve heard that but damn. . . Would you mind explaining?”

“Sure.” Scott had told it so many times, he had gotten it down to a quick but thorough run down of his crazy family. And really, it wasn’t like he could hide his past, if Suzie was going to balk, she might as well do it now.

“My father, Gerald, and my aunt Angel were adopted by the Williams family, they couldn’t have kids, wanted a boy and a girl, so they adopted Angel and Gerald, they grew up as siblings, but they weren’t related. Gerald, in High School, got my mom, Heather, pregnant. He married her, but she died when I was 5. He then married Martha when I was 7, he left about a year later. Martha kept me, Angel helped and we were all family, even though only Angel and Lydia are actually related.”

“Your dad’s still out there?”

“Gerald is still out there, yes.”

“You ever see him?”

“No.”

The next question was asked with some clear nervousness. “Do you want to?”

“Nope. No desire at all.”

“Okay.”

“How many questions in are we now?”

“Three.”

“Hold up, you asked a whole lot of questions there.”

“I asked if you minded explaining, you volunteered the answers.”

My God, this woman really is a lawyer. Scott thought. “If I’m going to answer these questions fully and honestly, I need to know you aren’t pulling tricks on me Suzie.”

She stopped moving her hands. “Yeah, that’s fair. Sorry. How about this, If you tell me more about you and Lydia we’ll count the rest as a separate question.”

“Two questions.”

“Really, you want me to be half-done?”

“I talked about my father.”

“Okay, you tell me about you and Lydia and we’ll count it as five.”

“About my 18th birthday.”

“Okay, we’ll go with that.” Suzie said, her voice dripping with curiosity.

Scott told her all about that day, Angel and Martha getting drunk, Lydia telling him not to get drunk, taking him to her room, that outfit she wore, the way she took it off, an offer of anything he wanted her to do. . .

“Damn, Scott, was she in love with you?” Suzie asked.

“No, she’d just mess around with me, she’d ditch me and date some random asshole afterwards.”

“Huh.” Suzie said, then was quiet for a while. Just rubbing his back mindlessly, going over the same spot a few too many times.

“Suzie?”

“Yeah?”

“That doesn’t feel good when you just rub the same place.”

“Oh, sorry. I was just. . .”

Lydia. Scott thought, Suzie was just thinking about Lydia, everyone got the wrong idea about him and Lydia. Sure they had sex, it wasn’t like Scott was going to tell her no when he was a horny teenager without a girlfriend, and Lydia was, well, Lydia. But it was just sex, and from what Lydia had told him, she had needed someone that cared about her, and being Angel’s daughter, of course sex was involved.

“Suzie, there was never anything between Lydia and I, other than random hookups.”

“I’m sorry, Scott, but she put some work into it for your birthday, that doesn’t sound casual.”

“Lydia gets off on having guys obsessed with her, Suzie, she was just making sure I’d think of her.”

“Okay.” She answered, clearly unconvinced.

“You went into the Army shortly after that right?”

“Is that a new question?”

“Clarification, just making sure my knowledge is accurate.”

Scott laughed.

“What?”

“You are going to be a great lawyer, Suzie.”

She kissed him on his shoulder. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, it was a couple weeks after that when I enlisted.”

“Did Lydia know?”

“Know what?”

“On your birthday, did she know you were planning to enlist?”

“No, I didn’t even know then.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“So what made you decide to enlist?”

“Not answering that.”

“You have to, it’s one of my questions.”

Scott turned over, faced her. “I’m not answering that.”

Suzie saw his face and folded.

“Oh Scott, I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer. Seriously, I’m sorry.”

She kissed his chest and curled up into him, “Whatever it is, Scott, I don’t need to know. I just. . . I love you.”

They laid there like that, neither of them speaking, but neither of them leaving either. Suzie fell asleep as Scott touched her hair and thought. Someday he’d have to tell her, he knew Suzie enough to know her curiosity was too much to let a secret like that stand. He also knew that it would be wrong of him to keep it from her if they were really a serious thing. And it wasn’t like she wouldn’t be around Angel and Lydia, she’d find out about that trip someday. He just wondered if she’d feel the same afterwards.