Three In One (Teresa Book 1) Read online

  Teresa shook her head to clear it of the past. She didn’t need to dwell in the past. Just learn from it and move on, her lawyer had told her. She missed Harvey. He had been a rock for her when she was treading waters during a hurricane of a trial. She felt like no one saw behind the waves of lies the Admiral was telling regarding her official position in his household. Harvey had broken down all the Admiral’s bullshit and helped Teresa make the jury see exactly what the bastard had done to her, in lurid detail. The details made her case, Harvey said, but Teresa had surely hated reliving those memories once more. She realized that the jury had hated hearing her recite all the acts the Admiral had made her do for paying customers as well. So they convicted him solely out of disgust. The Admiral wouldn’t get much time, 5-10 years, maybe he’d serve 3. She made use of her time since the trial to get as far from the bastard as she could. Turned out that far away place was Turlington, Alaska. 10,000 souls lived there. They had their own water and electrical supply, thanks to solar, water and wind energy. Most people knew each other but didn’t know of each other. They would say hello to you, but never went beyond that if you didn’t want to. Teresa didn’t want to. So most people left her alone. Exactly what she needed at this moment. Solitude.

  Then why had she talked to that bookstore owner? Why had she let him continue interacting with her? Why was she having lunch with him?

  He has kind eyes, she told herself. Kind eyes? Who the hell with kind eyes ever talked to her? She only attracted the worst men. The ones who liked to take without giving, violently. The ones who enjoyed hurting women, especially “bad and dirty” women like her. Were there others she had thought? Surely no other woman had gone through the hell she had. She hoped not. No woman deserved to be treated like she had been treated. No woman.

  Assuming that this man would treat her the same way, what the hell was she doing there?

  Chapter 44

  “Hello.” Teresa said hesitantly to the man in uniform, who sat in her seat at the table.

  Shit, she thought. Where could she sit without being too close to either of the men?

  “Hello.” Sheriff Henry said with a bright smile. He stood and held out his hand to her. He watched her look at it, as if it were a snake. Finally, reluctantly she took hold of it and shook it. She had a firm grip, Henry thought, unexpectedly. “Sheriff Henry.” he said. “And who might you be?” Henry asked hoping that she would give him her name if not Jackson.

  “Teresa.” she mumbled. The admiral had called her everything but her name because he said it was so stupid. She had thought about changing it but it was all she knew about herself before the Admiral.

  “Sorry.” Henry said, leaning towards her. He watched her lean back from him. He didn’t believe Jackson when he had told him earlier about her peculiarities. “I didn’t hear you.”

  “Teresa.” she said more clearly and loudly. She expected to see disgust on his face for her stupid name, instead he had an irresistibly devastating smile.

  “I have know a few Teresa’s in my lifetime.” he began. “They were all beautiful. But –“ Teresa waited for the words. She flinched as if he had already said them. The two men saw it and wondered what it was all about. “None of them were as beautiful as you.” She looked up startled by his comment. He was still smiling and getting up from her chair. She instinctually moved away from him. Still smiling he said good-bye to Jackson and keeping his distance, he said good-bye to her as he left.

  Teresa stood there watching him leave the restaurant, stunned. Had he just complimented her? No, she shook her head as she sat back down at the table. He was being polite, she told herself. Just being polite. She looked across the table at Jackson. He smiled at her too. She wondered suspiciously what game they were playing with her.

  Chapter 45

  Jackson and Henry learned to keep their distance from her. She appreciated the effort. In the beginning they never touched her. She was too frightened by their touch and would often leave if either of them reached out for her. They surmised the only touch she had known was painful.

  She refused to go to either of their homes. They assumed it was for safety issues. One day when Jackson and she were on the way back from a hike, Tank in the back seat, instead of turning into her driveway, he turned into his. They were neighbors.

  “Did you forget something?” Teresa asked calmly enough. Inside she was very nervous. Why were they stopping at his place? They had never gone to his place. It had been safer that way, for all of them. No one had actually said so, but it was implied and accepted. Until now she thought anxiously.

  “No. I was thinking we could spend the evening at my place.” He looked so earnestly at her, that she agreed. It was going to be a difficult night for her.

  She let him open the door for her, which was unusual. He would find out why soon enough. “Welcome!” he said letting her step into his home. Teresa gasped. She thought Harvey’s condo had been spectacular. Jackson home was stunning. It was all one floor and one room, with various strategic floating walls placed to break up the huge space. But the main breathtaking accent about the house was the entire back of the house was glass, looking out onto a scenic view of his backyard.

  All the furniture looked incredibly expensive, she thought. Not a good sign. Teresa tried to make herself as small as she could physically. She hugged herself tight and took very small steps. She made sure she didn’t touch anything.

  “What do you think …” Jackson trailed off his question. Teresa was hugging herself. That usually was never a good sign. It meant she was closing herself off from the world. Forgetting himself, he walked up to her, to hug her, but she made a hasty retreat and ended up backing into a suede-covered chair. She made an abrupt stop and fell into the chair. She quickly got up and looked at him with panic. The color drained from her face.

  “I’m sorry.” she whispered, backing away from him. “I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to touch your things. Please don’t hurt me. Please.” She held her arms out readying to defend herself against him. Usually what she did was just cover her head with her arms, hit the floor and curl up into a tight ball. It protected everything but her ribs, kidneys and spine. Luckily all hers were quick to heal despite the malnutrition she suffered from. The Admiral did take care of her after all of his rages. She was his most prized bitch.

  Jackson stopped moving towards her afraid she would fall over another piece of furniture. “Stop Teresa. You’re going to trip over that footstool. Just stop.” Which she did immediately. “Now I want you to come back to this chair and sit in it.” With just a moment’s hesitation, she went and sat back down in the beautiful oversized, gray suede chair. She looked like a child in it. She needs to eat, Jackson thought to himself. She was so skinny. Almost skin and bones. She didn’t look healthy. He liked a woman with curves and soft padding. Teresa was angular and sharp. Why did he continue seeing her? Those eyes he reminded himself. Those eyes which were looking at him right now. They were suspicious and that broke his heart. They had known each other for two months now and spent nearly every day together and she still doubted him. Clearly she had not told him everything about what she went through in the last ten years of her life.

  Jackson sat next to her in the adjoining chair, between was a small table with a floor lamp behind it. It was a nice little nook to talk or just read, he had found through the years. He leaned forward to the side to catch her eye, which she was consciously avoiding. “Teresa.” he began. “Would you please look at me?” After a few long seconds, she raised her eyes to him, but not her entire head. She looked like a puppy that was in trouble. He had never treated her like a child but she continually acted like one in some ways. Clearly the abuse had started very early. The person who had done this to her was number one on Jackson most wanted list. Maybe Henry could look into her past. He’d never done a background check on a woman in his life, but Teresa wasn’t very forthcoming with the details. Past memories that kept interfering with the now and his ability to help h
er.

  “Remember I told you I would never hurt you physically.” he reminded her. “I have no desire or need to hit you. And I never will.”

  “I remember.” she replied in a soft voice. He almost couldn’t hear her but he wasn’t about to get closer to her.

  “Teresa why are you sorry that you touched my chair?” Jackson asked. Teresa looked away. “Please look at me, Teresa.” he asked with some steel in his voice. She immediately looked back at him. So she was used to people telling her what to do, he thought. “Tell me Teresa why are you sorry that you touched my chair.”

  Teresa raised her head. She wet her lips, which were very dry. Taking a shaky breath in, she answered. “Because I know that it’s worth more than I am and I don’t want to get it dirty. The Admiral always used to say that he couldn’t have expensive things because of me. I would end up touching them and making them dirty. He would then have to get rid of them and he would lose all that money.”

  Jackson didn’t know what to think about what he had just heard. “ Teresa who is this Admiral asshole?”

  “He’s the one I have been with the last ten years.” she reluctantly told him. “He was my … Master. I was his slave.”

  “What kind of slave?” he asked, thinking he already knew the answer. Teresa again took a deep breath, letting it out slowly before answering him. “I was his … sex slave. I would service his customers.”

  “What customers?” Jackson asked, barely controlling his anger.

  “There were all kinds. They were all men.” Teresa answered, scared because he looked so angry.

  Jackson was shocked. He didn’t know this kind of thing happened. Yet here was the evidence right in front of him. No wonder she hated men. No wonder it took her two months to get used to him and Henry to even a slight degree. The hell she must have gone through from an early age. He couldn’t even conceive of it. To have left her like this. And yet he knew she was strong, incredibly strong. From the sheer fact that she survived.

  She kept looking at him. After all that was what he had last told her to do. She bit her lip. She wondered what this would do to his and her relationship. He would probably tell her to go home now and never to come back. She readied herself for the words. She watched him intently, trying to glean from his face what he was thinking. He looked perplexed, sometimes angry.

  Jackson realized she was watching him. He looked at her eyes full of tears that didn’t fall.

  “How many men?” he asked. She wasn’t expecting that question.

  Chapter 46

  Two hundred men a week, Jackson thought incredulous. Nearly a thousand a month. Twelve thousand a year. One hundred and twenty thousand in a decade.

  “Teresa, is this why you think you’re dirty?” he asked perceptively.

  She continued to look at him but the tears began to fall silently. She blinked her eyes to clear her vision but she didn’t move to wipe them away. The Admiral liked to watch her cry. He would smile and laugh. He reminded her that tears and crying showed that she still thought she deserved better than what her life was already. She didn’t he told her. Most of her customers liked to make and watch her cry. She had tried early on not to cry. To deny them all the satisfaction. They just beat her harder. So she had learned to live with her crying and the hope her tears implied. That somehow she deserved better. When in fact she didn’t deserve anything but what she had.

  Jackson started to reach over to wipe her tears away. Teresa flinched so he stopped and pulled back.

  “Teresa I wasn’t going to hit you.”

  “It’s ok.” she said, tremulously. “Most men do.”

  “Yeah well I’m not most men.” Jackson disagreed. “Right? I haven’t been like most men these past two months, have I Teresa? Right?”

  Teresa thought about it and he was right. He and Henry had been totally different from any other men she had ever known.

  She nodded her head.

  “So you don’t have to worry about us hurting you physically. I promise you that. And if I ever did, Henry would whip my ass. As I would if he ever hurt you.”

  Teresa smiled at his hyperbole. She raised her hand to cover her smile. While tears were great to watch, the Admiral hated smiles or laughter. Whenever she smiled she could count on being smacked hard. Not that she smiled all that much during those ten years. At some point early on she just stopped and had not done so again until she met Jackson and Henry. Henry especially!

  “Teresa things are going to change.” Jackson told this broken beautiful woman. “I promise you. Things will get better. From the sheer movement of karma, you’re due better times. I’m just so happy that Henry and I will be there with you during those better times.”

  “You think so?” Teresa asked hesitantly. “It feels like too much to hope for.”

  “I know it must. But it isn’t. I promise. And I know you won’t believe me this time, but maybe in the future you will. You are not dirty. I swear to you I don’t see you as dirty. Henry doesn’t see you as dirty. Feel free to touch anything you want in my house or his. I promise you won’t leave a stain or anything. I know it seems impossible to you but it is true. And we will keep repeating it until you do believe it and can say it for yourself.”

  Chapter 47

  Teresa raised herself up off of Henry’s chest where she had been lying. “Is there any fantasy you would like to act out?” she asked his sleepy face. At the question some of the sleep fled from his face. “Well, yeah, of course. But most of them involve public places.” he answered.

  “Oh.” Teresa sounded unsure of what to think. “I – I h-hate strangers watching me have sex.”

  “The public sex I am thinking about is when you have sex in public but try very hard to not let anyone notice you are.”

  “But wouldn’t … I mean how could you – hide … it.”

  Henry grinned. “By being quiet. I know you can be quiet. Now we could be quiet for pleasure.”

  Teresa didn’t seem to buy his argument. “We don’t have to do –“ Henry began.

  “No. I – I want to …”

  “It’s ok. We don’t have to do it.”

  “But I want to do something for you.”

  “I want to do something for the both of us, not just me.”

  Teresa lay back down on Henry’s chest.

  “Did Jackson say anything about the bruises on your neck?” Henry asked, changing the subject

  “No, but I’ve been wearing a scarf whenever I am with him. And we haven’t made love in a week. He’s been busy or I’ve pled tiredness. We haven’t really gotten undressed since you left the bruises on me.”

  “I’m so sorry.” Henry apologized again. “I didn’t think I was pressing so hard.”

  “You weren’t. I just have a bad circulatory system that bruises easily. I’m surprised I haven’t bruised before now.”

  Teresa could feel the rumble of Henry’s talking as he told her again how sorry he was.

  “I hope I didn’t scare you.” Henry said hopefully. She came back to him this morning. They had made love but with no choking. He hadn’t wanted to risk her turning away from him. The thought alone crushed him. He couldn’t bear to have Teresa out of his life. He would have to kill himself if she ever left him. No other woman in his life had ever been like her. Innocent but sinful. Sweet but sarcastic. Gorgeous but humble. Well more like humiliated. However she was like a flower that was blooming. Her petals opening a little bit more every day. He so enjoyed watching her blossom under his and Jackson’s encouragement.

  “Henry,” Teresa began tentatively. “Are you – bored with me? Do you want to stop fuck-ing me?”

  Henry sat up, holding on to Teresa as he did so. He looked down at her. “Why would you ask such a question?”

  “You didn’t – choke me today. I figured you – were tired – of me.”

  “No.” he said quickly. “I will never tire of making love to you. Never. I didn’t choke you this morning because I didn’t want to hurt you
any more than I had.”

  “It doesn’t matter if you hur-“

  “Yes it does matter Teresa. You matter.” he told her with fierceness. He didn’t know how to make her see how much she mattered to him. After so many years of hearing the opposite, his puny words couldn’t seem to break through the wall of humiliation that surrounded her. “I – I – love you Teresa. I would never hurt you on purpose. I don’t want to. Do you understand?”

  “No not really.” she answered honestly. “Love is just getting as much as you can from a person without regard to what the consequences were for the other person. I can’t do that. I can’t love.”

  “Not that way no. But that’s not real love.”

  “What’s real love?”

  “I don’t have words to describe it. You better ask Jackson. He could tell you.”

  “Can you please – try?” she asked settling in next to him as they sat with their backs against Henry’s headboard.

  Henry put an arm around her and pulled her tight to him. He could lie as good if not better than most undercover operatives. Honesty was a little harder.

  “From the first moment I saw you, I knew you were the one. The one I had been waiting for all my life. The one I would give my life for. I just wish I could have been there ten years ago to keep you safe. I’m sorry I couldn’t do that for you.”

  “You don’t have anything to be sorry about. It wasn’t you that raped me.” Teresa consoled him. “What makes you say you - love me?”

  “The fact that I can’t stand being apart from you. This sense that when I am inside you, I found my other half. Sometimes we have these conversations that make me think that I found a soul mate. I hear you laugh and I can’t help but think, ‘I want to make her laugh again and again.’ When you smile it’s like I never knew what beauty was until then.”

  Teresa pulled away from his embrace to better see his face. He looked and sounded so genuine, she thought, examining his demeanor. But how could she believe him? No one had ever said such things to her or about her. Nobody had wanted her for anything other than her body. It was easier for her to believe that the boys tolerated her for her fellatio skills. That she could understand. This whole love thing was just too confusing. She didn’t know what to say or do. So she did the only thing she could think of– she kissed him.