Totlandia: Winter Read online

  Hearing Eleanor’s comment, Bettina’s proud smile dissipated in a hot mess of hurt. Lorna felt sorry enough for her sister-in-law that she kicked Matt under the table and felt it wise to change the subject. “Lily, having just returned from the Mariinsky Ballet camp, you must have loved the Nureyev exhibit at the DeYoung. All those beautiful costumes!”

  Lily’s pointe tendu sagged as she frowned. “He was certainly a pretty man. But my ballet mistress, Madame Irina, says he was a traitor to Mother Russia, so I guess I don’t like him.”

  Matt laughed. “Spoken like a true pinko.”

  “Uncle Matt, I no longer wear pink leotards. I’ve graduated to black ones. See?” Lily’s arabesque penchée was a bit clumsy. She would have kicked her grandmother’s Rodin bust off its pedestal if Matt hadn’t swept her up into his arms.

  “Duly noted and chastised,” he said as he flipped her upside down.

  “Silly, you’ve ruined my cabriole! At least flip me right side up and I’ll pretend that you’re the Nutcracker’s Burgermeister.”

  As Matt did so, he lost his balance. At the same time, Lily tilted so far to the right that it looked as if she might fall out of his arms. Bettina leaped up just in time to catch her, but in doing so, she whipped Lily around too quickly. Her little left foot smacked Dante in the head.

  Before his grandmother could catch him, he fell headfirst onto the floor.

  Eleanor and Lorna screamed, jumping up at the same time. Unfortunately, they too bumped heads as they reached for the moaning toddler.

  Bettina scooped him up before they could topple over onto him. Despite Dante’s attempts to bury his head into her chest, she held him just far enough away that she could examine what was already the makings of a red lump on the side of his forehead.

  “Thank goodness Mother’s hardwood floors have such thick rugs. Otherwise, I’m sure it would have been a lot worse,” she declared.

  As if, thought Lorna. She grabbed Dante from Bettina. She knew her sister-in-law was only trying to help, but she couldn’t face her. She was ashamed of so many things: That she hadn’t reached Dante before he had fallen, and that Bettina had gotten to him first. That her husband was such a klutz, and that her little niece was such a show-off. That Eleanor would feel guilty for having dropped him, and would now worry about anything that seemed off in Dante’s behavior. Most of all, she was ashamed that she’d yet to find the guts to tell anyone—including Matt, and certainly not Eleanor—that Dante had been diagnosed with autism.

  Eleanor blocked Lily’s remorseful pats on her little cousin’s back. “Haven’t you done enough?” she snapped.

  Lily ran from the room, sobbing.

  “Eleanor, she’s just a kid! She didn’t do it on purpose.” Lorna, holding Dante, ran after her. The last thing she wanted was for Lily to ever feel responsible for Dante’s condition.

  Matt took off after his wife.

  Bettina stared after her sister-in-law. Now she had three things to feel guilty about: Her role–and Lily’s–in Dante’s injury, Lorna’s care and concern about her daughter, and accepting Kelly’s offer to sabotage Lorna’s club membership.

  She knew she should run after them, too, but she was afraid that doing so would look as if she were siding with Lorna against her mother. That would never do. For the first time in a long time, she and her mother seemed to be on the same side about something.

  I just don’t like being on this side, Bettina thought miserably.

  Apparently, neither did Eleanor, who confirmed this when she murmured, “We’re a fine set of bitches, aren’t we?”

  “Hey, what did I miss?” Art’s cheery voice boomed from the foyer, where he was taking off his raincoat.

  Both women chose to answer him by walking out of the room in different directions.

  I get no respect around here, he thought. Really, I get no respect anywhere. I’ve got to work on that.

  Chapter 3

  Tuesday, 6, November

  10:20 a.m.

  Over the next couple of days, whenever Bettina or Eleanor called Lorna’s cell phone, she let it go straight to voice mail. A good thing, because had she taken the time to listen to their messages, they would have made her cry.

  10:30 a.m.

  Eleanor: “Lorna, darling, I was wondering if I should ask my good friend, Dr. Hibbert, to stop by and take a look at Dante’s bump. Matthew assures me it’s almost gone, but he also mentioned something about Dante seeming more lethargic than usual. Hibbert’s a good man. He just recently retired as Chief of UCSF’s Neurology Department, and he lives right around the corner from you, so it would be no imposition at all. You know what they say, Better safe than sorry. Think about it, dear, won’t you?”

  1:15 p.m.

  Bettina: “Lorna, you know I wouldn’t be calling if I wasn’t concerned about…well, about what happened yesterday. Granted, you have every right to be miffed. We were all a bit too rambunctious. That said, perhaps you can reassure me that my one and only nephew is all right. Is that too much to ask?”

  3:55 p.m.

  Eleanor: “Lorna, dear, I don’t mean to be a pest. And I thoroughly understand if you’d prefer your own doctor. Matt assures me you’ve taken Dante to see him, but when I phoned your pediatrician’s office, they said you hadn’t been there. Did you decide to go to a specialist? To be perfectly honest with you, I’d feel a little better if you gave me some sort of update. Please don’t think of me as nosy, just…concerned. Good-bye.”

  8:44 p.m.

  Bettina: “Lorna, it’s me again. Where the hell are you? I presume you know Mother is totally distracted over this business with Dante’s fall! And Lily hasn’t quit crying all day. She thinks you hate her. Of course, she blames me for that, too. This really isn’t fair. We love him, and just want to know he’s okay, so…just…call.”

  Lorna knew she couldn’t avoid Bettina at the next day’s meet-up.

  She also knew that both Bettina and Eleanor turned off their cell phones after nine o’clock at night.

  She chose 9:41 p.m. to leave a message for both of them. Yes, I’ve taken Dante to a specialist, and everything is fine, but it would be wise for Dante to take it easy for a couple of days. That said, he will be missing Wednesday’s meet-up.

  Bettina would certainly cut her some slack for that.

  But appeasing Eleanor would take more than a doctor’s note.

  It would break Eleanor’s heart to hear the truth.

  Another reason to lay low.

  If, by some miracle, Dr. Remfeld was wrong about Dante’s initial tests, it would be worth the wait, even if it only made her in-laws dislike her even more.

  Chapter 4

  Thursday, 8 November

  7:41 a.m.

  “You’ve been a very, very bad boy.” The cat-o’-nine-tails cracked the air before coming down onto Art’s left ass cheek. “Say it. ‘Bettina is a bitch. I hate her.’”

  Art whimpered into a leather muzzle, knowing full well that any sound other than those sentences would earn him another strike of the whip. But when? And where would it land?

  Ruminating was half the fun.

  He couldn’t see his mistress because he was strapped facedown onto a spanking bench, but he could hear the click of her heels on the wood floor as she circled him. When she finally stopped, he braced himself for the sting. Knowing her love of symmetry, his right cheek tightened in anticipation. Instead, a gentle feather tickled his spine as it climbed slowly from his ass crack to the top of his neck. After which, he imagined it hovering over his head…

  Or was that the whisper of the whip?

  Of course it was. It came down high on his left thigh.

  Art’s yelp only made his mistress laugh. “Why don’t you say it?” she taunted him. “Go on! You know you want to.”

  “I—I can’t.” He gasped. “Not…yet.”

  “Sure you can.” She ran a long fingernail down his back before taking his butt plug and twisting it—hard. “Quit pretending to be so lo
yal to her. If that were the case, you wouldn’t be here with me.”

  She was right, of course.

  Kelly was always right.

  Their affair had started just last week after the Halloween parade. She was dressed in a medieval damsel-in-distress costume to complement her son’s Robin Hood outfit. When she walked over to say hello, she had cradled Wills in such a manner that her breasts almost popped out of the low, rounded neck of her dress.

  After seeing her sly smile, Art wasn’t going to turn down her request that he help her load Wills and his candy stash into her car. Besides, Bettina was too busy schmoozing with some doctor whose charity she fronted, so she’d never even know he’d taken off.

  When they got to Kelly’s BMW SUV, she asked Art to buckle Wills into his car seat. He was obliging her when he felt her hand caress his ass.

  She really had his attention when she grasped his balls.

  “I bet you like it rough.” Her guttural mutter in his ear elicited a slow nod. Then she took two things from her purse: a pen, with which she wrote her telephone number on his hand and a steel ring, about an inch and a half in diameter.

  “What is this?” He was almost afraid to ask.

  “A cock ring.” She drew out the second word so that it was almost three syllables. “Have it on when you see me next—tomorrow morning, at my place, seven-thirty sharp. After that, every Tuesday and Thursday, same time and place. Keith, my husband, is a doctor. He’s out of the house by seven.”

  The thought of the cold, hard disk pressing against his dick had him near bursting. “Before work?…But what will I tell Bettina I’m doing?”

  Kelly cocked her head as she considered that for a moment. “Oh, I don’t know. Fucking her old pal?”

  Of course, she’d been kidding.

  At least, he thought at first.

  That night, he told Bettina he’d signed up for a gym membership, so he could work out before going into the office. She never questioned whether he was telling her the truth. In the evening, he certainly complained enough about new aches and pains. Had Bettina ever bothered to look closely at his bruises and welts, she would have noticed that most of them were on his backside.

  He was surprised how readily he had agreed to Kelly’s domination. Seeing her in a sexy vinyl teddy made it easier for him to agree to slip into anything she demanded: cock rings, shackles, blindfolds, handcuffs, collars, whatever.

  The very first spanking had shamed him and thrilled him at the same time. By the second, he couldn’t wait to feel her pain.

  The beatings were always followed by great sex, but only after Art broke down and uttered the words Kelly lived to hear, “I hate that bitch, Bettina.”

  The truth was that he couldn’t wait to say it. And not just for the sex, but because it thrilled him that Bettina’s old friend Kelly despised his wife as much as he did.

  But as long as he pretended otherwise, he’d stay in Kelly’s bed.

  Well, not exactly her bed. More like her dungeon. The placard on the locked door proclaiming the home’s atelier KELLY’S CRAFT ROOM was part of the thrill. He wondered how long it had taken her to make the quilts that hung on its padded walls and the painted angels that adorned the paddling bench he now straddled.

  He also wondered if her husband, the elusive and hardworking Dr. Keith, had this much fun up here, too.

  His guess was yes.

  Right then and there, he realized he’d married the wrong woman.

  If only he’d met Kelly first! Granted, the Connaught connections—not to mention the trusts, which would be his to manage the minute Eleanor kicked off—were nothing to sneeze at, but the Bryant fortune was renowned.

  Kinky Kelly and her nest egg. What a combo. Hey, why not? Already he was getting the benefit of one. Maybe the other could be had, too.

  He’d ask when the time was right. Tethered to a bench wouldn’t do. She’d wanted to clamp him to the wrist-and-ankle shackles on the far wall, but so far, he’d balked at the thought of being spread-eagled over a trompe l’oeil copy of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man. If he acquiesced with the caveat that she toss him a spare million to see what he could do with it, maybe she’d go for it.

  At the very least, she could act out the wet dream of his other investors and punish him whenever her stocks tanked. That thought had him groaning ecstatically. Or maybe it was the slap from Kelly’s sixteen-inch paddle, something she claimed she’d made herself.

  He closed his eyes, better to enjoy the fantasy of her straddling a workbench, naked, as she guided her jigsaw drill over a three-eighth-inch-thick Baltic birch. She’d have to have a steady hand for that diamond-hole pattern. Why, there must be at least five coats of black lacquer on that thing. What a deviant little homemaker she was, unlike Bettina, whose idea of kinky sex was the one time she allowed him to watch her while she masturbated with her dildo.

  The thought of it was enough for him to give Kelly what she wanted. Even the pony bit gag of his leather muzzle couldn’t muffle his loud, proud declaration, “I fucking hate that bitch, Bettina!”

  11:20 a.m.

  “Why don’t you let me buy you lunch today?”

  Lorna wasn’t expecting to hear Bettina’s voice on her cell phone. And she certainly wasn’t expecting her phone to ring as she waited in UCSF’s Pediatric Autism and Neurology Clinic for the latest assessment of Dante’s condition.

  It sent a chill of dread through her. The last time she’d seen Dante’s physician, Dr. Remfeld, he’d been standing beside Bettina at the Union Street Halloween parade. Lorna had been afraid he might see her and Dante and wave. In no time at all, Bettina would put two and two together about Dante’s situation.

  But no. Lorna knew Bettina hadn’t a clue because when she had handed Dante off to Dr. Remfeld today, she broached the topic herself. “I realize you know my sister-in-law, Bettina Connaught Cross. I’d like your assurance that there will be complete discretion about Dante’s condition. I’ll be breaking the news to the family at the right time.”

  “Absolutely, Lorna,” he assured her. “However, I would advise you to do so sooner than later. You’ll be surprised how much having your family’s support will mean to you.”

  He obviously didn’t know the Connaughts as well as she had presumed.

  Dr. Remfeld’s diagnosis, just a week ago, had stunned her. Until he and his staff had run out of tests to do on Dante, Lorna wasn’t giving up on the possibility that he’d been wrong, that Dante’s condition was just temporary.

  Until that happened, no one else would know about it. Not even Matthew.

  Certainly not Bettina.

  “Where are you?” Bettina demanded. “I’ll come pick you up.”

  “No!...I mean, I’m out shopping with Dante. I’ll drop him off with Matt for his lunch and nap, and meet you wherever you like.”

  “Why not bring him along?” It was the first time Lorna had heard anything that came close to true concern in Bettina’s voice. She was tempted to do her sister-in-law’s bidding, but then it hit her: Bettina would be looking for something to be wrong with Dante. She’d scrutinize him and ask questions.

  Now was not the time to answer them. Not yet, anyway. It would be hard enough to tell Matthew, which she vowed she’d do after New Years’. Besides, it was more important to allow Dr. Remfeld’s tests to take their course, and then present Matthew with everything, so that they could make a decision together on what to say to the family, and when.

  “No. The doctor insists he get plenty of rest.” Lorna’s tone was firm. “Why don’t we say twoish?”

  “That’s later than I had planned. Lily has ballet practice at three-thirty—”

  “Maybe another time, then?”

  “No problem, really, Lorna. I’ll get Lily covered.” For once, Bettina sounded desperate.

  Maybe it was time to listen to Bettina’s apology.

  More importantly, maybe it was time to bury the hatchet with her sister-in-law.

  “Okay. How about Rose’
s Café on Union?” Lorna asked.

  “Um…I have a great idea! There’s a wonderful new place that just opened up—Claxton Restaurant. On Battery. I’ll see you there, twoish.”

  She hung up before Lorna could ask her why she chose to eat outside the neighborhood.

  2:02 p.m.

  No, no, no! This cannot be happening, thought Jillian.

  But yes, it was. Bettina Connaught Cross was there, in Claxton.

  Worse yet, the maitre d’ was about to seat Bettina—and Lorna, too!—in Jillian’s section.

  Jillian tried to wave him off, but it was too late. He only just glanced up after pulling out Bettina’s chair, at which point all he could do was mouth ‘Sorry.’

  Jillian tapped another wait person, on the shoulder. “Moira, how would you like to take table twenty-seven off my hands?”

  Moira shook her head regretfully. “Sorry, can’t do it. I’m off the floor in fifteen minutes.”

  Jillian was still contemplating what to do when she saw her manager, Brad, motion toward the table. Both Bettina and Lorna were deep in conversation, but yes, they had scanned their menus. Jillian gave Brad the high sign, then walked slowly toward the table.

  It was the longest trek of her life.

  ***

  “They say that the chef here makes Michael Mina seem like a hack,” Bettina declared as she looked over the menu. “Supposedly his duck confit salad is to die for. Why don’t we order that for starters? Or maybe I’ll have it as my entrée.”

  “Duck?” Lorna wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know. It’s a little rich for my blood.”