Elite & Tawdry ✔ [COMPLETE]

Chapter 59

Tawny was alone in a dark void of nothingness.

The only other soul she could see was her mother, Faye, who looked as she did the day she had first dropped Tawny off for school at Ivoree Gates.

"Mom?" Tawny asked. "What are you doing here? What's going on?"

"You've abandoned me," Tawny's mother replied.

"What?" Tawny said, stunned. She shook her head. "No, never. I would never do that!"

Suddenly, Faye's clothes changed and she was wearing the hospital gown. She looked unhealthy, her cheeks were sunken in  and her hair was stringy and greasy. "You left me to fend for myself, while you lived your contented life. Well, no more You'll no longer have access to me. From this point over we are finished."

"Mom..." Tawny said. "You don't mean that..."

Faye crossed her arms and turned her back on her daughter. "I never want to see you again!"

As though she uttered an incantation, the distance between them rapidly grew.

"Mom, come back!" yelled Tawny. "I'm sorry!"

As she attempted to run for her mother, the solid state of the void gave way and Tawny felt herself following further and further into the nothingness.

"Mooom!"

---

Tawny awoke. The void in her nightmare was gone, but her eyes found it difficult to adjust to the lack of light in her new space. She was lying down on her back on a very soft bed, that was all the information she had for now.

Then Tawny felt a gentle touch on her skin, cool and damp. Tawny identified it as a sponge; to her left was a figure in the dark holding the sponge and lightly applying it to her forehead.

"I should have been there to protect you," came a voice from the figure. 

Professor McCurdy? Again, the room was dark so she couldn't see him, but she recognized the distinct tenor of his voice, and the scent of his sandlewood cologne.

Does he know that I'm awake? she wondered. In the dim light, he wouldn't have been able to see her open her eyes, and she didn't dare move her head to draw attention to herself. Instead, Tawny opted to remain perfectly still, and shut her eyes again to feign her continued slumber.

Professor McCurdy resumed applying the sponge to Tawny's head and neck. "If I had been there with you," he continued, "I could have spared you this affliction, and you wouldn't be recovering in our bed at Rebecca's insistence."

So that's where she was, Tawny realized. In the big, luxurious Alaskan King bed she had seen in passing a few times while living with the McCurdys. Tawny wasn't quite sure she should feel honoured at the opportunity or revulsed at the sheer perversion of the situation...so she decided neither and to let herself enjoy the sensation of the sponge on her skin.

When the sponge traveled to the hollow of Tawny's neck, he paused. After a few seconds, he pulled the sponge away. Tawny cautioned a quick peek; without craning her neck and from the very limits of her peripheral figure, she thought she could see Professor McCurdy rub his face with both his hands.

"Rebecca...I love my wife so very much. She is charming. Compassionate. Courageous. She came to me in my darkest hour and made me the man that I am today. Her return...helped me put a lot of things into perspective. My existence here...this entire situation...it's untenable."