Read Foster Brother's Arms for Free Online Page B

and says, “After you left me all those years ago, something unexpected happened.  I became numb to everything.  I never really felt happy.  I never really felt sad. I just felt…nothing.  An absence of feeling, all the time.”  He swirls his wine in the glass, staring at it absently. “Girls at school eventually wanted to date me, of course.  I was rich and they found me attractive, so I dated a few girls.  But still…they left me cold.  Disinterested.  Sometimes they’d allow me to take them sexually, and I couldn’t even muster up enough excitement to stay hard.  Which obviously wouldn’t do.  But after a while, I discovered that when I tied them up, when I disciplined them, when I took complete mastery over them”—he shrugs—“I was able to enjoy myself.  Perhaps because it was an extreme experience, it cut through the fog of my numbness.  Or maybe it was finally having control that got me off, since I’d always had so little of it in my own life.  I really don’t know.  But it became my preferred method of foreplay.” His gaze meets mine. “Now it’s my turn for a question.  How the hell did you end up as a high end escort in Vegas?”
    For some reason, I appreciate that he used the word escort to describe what I do and not something much worse. I say, “I’ve been doing this for a long time, Raine.  Almost since we broke up.  After seeing you that day, I left Maine and moved to Vegas, hoping to get a job that didn’t require a college degree, or even a high school degree.”
    “But you were always so smart.  You wanted to go to college. What happened?”
    “My foster father happened. He was…threatening me.  I knew it was only a matter of time before he forced himself on me, so I left before that could happen.  I was tired of foster families so I struck out on my own, and well, you see where I ended up.”
    “What about Elliot?”
    I stare into his eyes for long time, gathering strength, before I answer. “There never was an Elliot. He didn’t exist.  I made  him up so you wouldn’t know the truth.”
    “And what’s the truth?”
    I take a fortifying breath and begin, “A few days before I ran away, my foster father must have tampered with the lock on my bedroom door.  He crept into my room in the middle of the night—just like our first foster father did all those years ago.  Only this time, I was bigger, and I was able to fight him off.  It got nasty, and at one point, he ripped my nightgown off.  But I was able to get out from under him and…anyway, I barely escaped, but I did.  And he told me that if I ever told anyone what had happened, he’d point to my past and say I had a record of claiming sexual abuse, and that I was a liar—about whatever I accused him of, and about what happened to us all those years ago.  He said he’d have me locked up in a mental hospital like my foster mother, and he’d make sure they found you and locked you up for murder.”
    “Good God, Lana.  Why the hell didn’t you tell me any of this?”
    “Because I knew you’d want to run away too, and I couldn’t let you throw everything away for me.”
    “ You were everything to me.”
    “Look at your life now, Raine. You have everything you could ever ask for.  What would you be doing if you had taken off with me? You’d be a bartender maybe, if you were lucky. Or some other low-paying blue collar job.”
    “It doesn’t matter what I would have done, Lana. I would have been happy.”
    “You’re not happy now?”
    He stares into the air over my head thoughtfully, as if considering it for the first time. “I don’t know,” he says more to himself than to me.  “But if I’d known the truth, I could have protected you. I certainly wouldn’t have let you become a god damned prostitute.”
    Sharp pain pierces my heart to finally hear that word on his lips.  Prostitute. And the worst part is that I know it’s true. 
    “I did what I had to do to survive,” I