Right Path, Wrong Turn

As Matt pulls up outside the house, he shuts off his vehicle’s engine and sighs to himself.
To say the exchange between him, Sophie, Deryk and Lindsay at the club last night was awkward would be the understatement of an entire century. How he got himself into this mess is unbeknown to him.
He knows his not technically his place to get involved, but if Deryk isn’t going to stop it and karma isn’t working swiftly enough then that leaves him with no choice but to get involved right?
His plan to let Lindsay bust them at the club was wrong, he knew that now. He doesn’t want Deryk and Lindsay to break up, they are perfect for each other, and that’s why he wanted to spoon fed some sense into the guilty parties.
He leans over to grab Sophie’s black purse from his passenger side seat and realises that there is no getting out of this. She needs her bag and Lindsay is surely going to be asking him how the exchange went.
Maybe, while he’s here, he will be able to talk some sense into Sophie, without Deryk interrupting.

After ringing the door bell, an older and slightly balding man opens the door, with a kid no older than two on his hip. “Can I help you?”
Matt falters, thinking he must have the wrong house. “Ah, I was just um…looking for Sophie…um Sophie Markham?”
The older man smiles, but it doesn’t touch his eyes. “Sophia is in her room. It’s down the hall on the left.”
“Thanks,” Matt utters in response, making his way through the house.
From the outside it had seemed quaint and tidy, middle class. But inside is a mess, with various children’s toys and items of clothing scattered across the floor. Dishes sat in the sink and the wall paper peeled slightly in the hallway.
The door to the room that her father had described was open, so Matt just knocked twice, and then entered.
Contrary to the rest of the house, Sophie’s room was immaculate. It had pink and white wall paper rounding it, a tidy and freshly made double bed against the wall, and children’s toys also, but they were gathered together in a large soft bucket for storage.
However, Matt got chills when he saw a child’s crib, next to her bed.
A large mirror hung from one wall and Sophie stood in front of it.
“Oh shit,” she curses when she sees him in the reflection. “What the hell do you want?”
He is too confused, his mind too busy racing with the complicating possibilities of the house’s contents that he doesn’t even notice her abrasive greeting.
She rolls her eyes and turns away, fiddling with various items of make up that sit on her dresser top.
“You work at Target?” he asks, noting the uniform she is wearing.
“Of course not,” she replies sarcastically. “It’s a sex costume for Deryk, cause you know, that’s what a guy really wants to see a girl in right?”
The look on his face shows her he obviously hasn’t comprehended her snaky cynicism.
“Obviously I work there, why else would I be wearing this?” Her foot taps and her hand sits on her hip, showing her fierce aggravation. “Look Matt, what the hell do you want? Because I’ve got work soon and to be honest, I’ve had quite enough of your judgemental comments for a life time.”
“I brought your purse,” he says, watching her face caught off guard at his kind gesture.
“Well, that was sweet of you,” she replies, thankfully taking it from him.
She hadn’t even noticed that she had left it at the club. When she had gotten home last night it was to pressing questions from her father as to where she had been.
As much as she hates the thought of owing Matt anything or having to be grateful towards him, she can’t ignore that if he hadn’t have brought it back to her, she would have been in serious trouble. Annabelle’s school trip fees are due soon and baby Julian no doubt needs more diapers and things soon, hence her father’s harsh reaction last night.
For important bills to be paid, money needs to be earned, and that involves her father going to work, just as she will do in another hour. And once again, her sister had gone M.I.A, completely ignoring her family obligations, and preventing her father from being able to start his night shift on time, given he couldn’t leave the young children without anyone to watch them.
“Thank you Matt.”
He nods and she excuses herself, hearing a sad wail coming from the lounge.
In her absence, Matt nosily peers around her room, hoping to find a clue or something that will reveal more about mysterious Sophie.
Maybe if he gets to know her, he will be able to understand what could possibly drive her to want to begin an affair with a married man, on top of all her other commitments.
Sophie springs him rumbling through a draw of her dresser, picking up handfuls of notes and little wrapped chocolates.
In her arms she bounces the young child her father was holding previously, and grins at finally catching him doing something wrong.
“What do you think you’re doing Niskanen?”
He looks shocked at what he’s found, but more at the quantity rather than the actual objects themselves. “Deryk wrote you all of these? Gave you all of these?”
Sophie nods. “Well, I mean he sent most of them, but yeah. I sure as hell didn’t write or send them to myself.”
For the first time, Matt sees that maybe the delusion of Sophie being the one who pursued and cornered Deryk might be just that, a delusion.
The small child in her arms cries and Sophie quickly pacifies him, murmuring to him “It’s okay baby. You’re alright.”
Matt shakes his head in disbelief and takes a seat on the end of Sophie’s bed. “Why are you doing this?”
“Doing what?”
“Sophie, you are sleeping with a married man, when you clearly have a lot on your plate with a job and a child and-”
“Okay, I’m gonna stop you right there. Matt, this is baby Julian, my sister’s son. She…she isn’t around much so my father and I take care of Julian, and his older sister Annabelle. She’s at school today.”
“Oh.”
“But I’ll add the fact that you think I’d cheat on a family to the long list of many flattering assumptions you’ve made about me.”
Matt feels the handful of her things he still has in his hand and immediately feels terrible. It doesn’t excuse her behaviour, not by any means, but it certainly sheds light upon his incorrect assumptions in regards to who is the more guilty party in the situation.
“Sophie, I thought you were some boppy college girl who just couldn’t keep her legs closed and wanted a big named guy like Engo. I didn’t expect to walk into this.”
Feeling her face turn an uncomfortable hot shade of red, Sophie looks away. She doesn’t bring many people back to her house, or into her home life, and she is quickly reminded of why.
She is a tough girl, and with the certain events of her life, she’s had to be. She is used to being judged, accustomed to people’s disapproving glances and eye rolls. Matt’s line of questioning at the game the other night had been like water off her back. Question her all you want, call her names and tear her down, she’s not offended. She’s tougher than that.
But her family being hauled into the equation is not okay. People judging them is not okay, and she doesn’t like the tone Matt carries in his ‘this.’
“Thanks for returning my bag Matt, but you can go now.”
He hadn’t meant it how it sounded, he was just surprised at how different she was from how he had assumed. But he takes her hint and goes, leaving the notes on her bed.
He has no idea what he will say to Lindsay when he sees her next and she asks how things went.

*****

Dressed up in her slinky little black dress, Sophie stands at her bedroom mirror, trying to rid her mind of the look on Lindsay’s face as she had greeted Deryk at the club the other night.
She squeezes her eyes tight and tries to focus on the size of Deryk’s arms, the feel of them holding her as he took her against the wall. The feel of his rough hands helping themselves to her in the darkness. The noise that fell from his lips as he finished inside her. That’s what she clings to, what she uses to try to drown out all else.
She curses Matt’s name, wanting to blame him for Lindsay’s presence that night. If it weren’t for him, she would never have had to witness that exchange between husband and wife, and wouldn’t have had to deal with it haunting her sleep for the last few nights.
She knows of course, that it was a sprinkling of karma, a warning of what it was exactly that she was meddling in.
Two people getting married means they are pledge their love and undying support to that one person for the rest of their life, forsaking all others. But Sophie isn’t delusional. She knows that there is no simple ‘happily ever after’ to sum up the rest of someone’s life after a wedding like there is in fairytales. Being married doesn’t mean forever.
Not in Sophie’s world. That’s what she’s learnt.
Her mother and father took their vowels four years before she was born, and they didn’t mean forever. At least not to her mother.
Sophie scowls now, the image of her mother flooding to mind.
Marie Markham walked out on her family six years ago, leaving one young daughter and one pregnant one, and a broken-hearted husband. A wealthy business man named Stuart had wooed her, lured her from her family with gifts and treats, a bank account that had no bottom and a life of luxury that seemed like a dream.
Sophie hasn’t seen her mother in as many years, and has no desire to. If Matt really wants to talk about having no morals, then maybe he should talk to her mother, she thinks to herself.
Sex with Deryk is just that, -sex. He will never leave Lindsay for her and she will never want him to. And if or when Lindsay ever gets pregnant, Sophie knows she would end things. She will never break a family the way her mother and Stuart broke hers.
Saving her from her own thoughts, her father knocks on her door. “Are you going out Sophia?”
She smoothes her hands over her dress and nods. “Yes. But don’t worry, I’ve asked Addison from next door to baby sit. I know you’d prefer that I stay here with Anna and Jul but Addison is a lovely girl, straight-A student and I’ve seen her references from other parents of children she’s babysat.”
Samuel Markham laughs lightly, and wraps his youngest daughter in his arms. “It’s okay,” he tells her. “You’ve been doing nothing but working and taking care of those kids all week, Sophia. You have been doing nothing but working and taking care of them for years. Have a break. Go out and have fun.”
His eyes watch her carefully to make sure his request is sinking in, and he doesn’t break focus until he can see her face relax. “Anna and Jul will be fine, and you have a day off work tomorrow so please don’t worry.”
Sophie’s fingers twiddle uncomfortably. “Have you heard anything from Ashley?”
As always, her father’s face stiffens when she mentions her sister. Sophie can practically see the hair on his head, or what’s left of it, turn grey. “No, I have not. But no doubt she will return in a couple of days to make a brief appearance, ask for money and then disappear without a trace again.”
With anger, Sophie’s stomach contracts. Another reason to hate her mother. Ashley was 5 months pregnant when Marie had left them. Ashley had needed her mother, and she had left without a trace.
Now life is much the same for Ashley’s two children Annabelle & Julian, with Ashley coming and going as she pleases. Sophie tries not to hold it against her, knowing that by first getting pregnant at age sixteen, Ashley was thrust into the life of motherhood that she wasn’t ready for. Going out and staying with her friends is her way of reclaiming her youth and breaking from the mould she is in, getting some relief from the life she is trapped in.
Just as Sophie was planning to tonight.
Being alone with Deryk was a roller coaster ride, one that never failed to take her from the stresses of her life and deliver her to a magical haven. When his lips are kissing her, his hands on her, and him inside her, there is no ability to think, and everything troubling and pressuring her seems to slip away, clearing huge weight off her shoulders.
Sure, there is a burden on her conscience afterwards, but those moments of getting out of her own life, they are worth it. They are worth anything and everything.
So she says goodbye to her father, kissing his cheek, then grabs her purse and her lip gloss, and heads out the door, leaving one life for another, if only for the night.

Lindsay heads out of town to visit her brother, sister-in-law and young nephews every two weeks. This time, it so happens that her planned visit falls on a weekend of which Deryk has no games. But, being the wordsmith that he is, managed to convince her that he couldn’t miss practise to go with her, needing some more conditioning.
Knowing that she left last night and that Deryk had practice today, and doesn’t have it tomorrow, excites Sophie extensively. Her body tingles wildly as she drives to the hotel.
Its refreshing to know there will be no chance of running in to Lindsay given she’s not even in town, and its hot to have in her mind that Deryk’s just finished a long workout.
Going to the gym to stay in shape has never really worked for Sophie, given she does more drooling over the males than actual exercise. She has an acute fascination with the bend and flex of muscles, and the mental image of him working hard and dripping in sweat is one that send waves of heat through her, that collect in the bottom of her stomach.
Her phone beeps, and as she pulls to a stop at a red light, she checks it.
‘Room 105. Having a shower, join me.’
Reading it off the screen, she can just imagine the gravely and lustful tone he would say it in.
When the light changes to green, she’s off like a rocket, making it to the hotel in record time.
A sweet looking man parks her car for her, and she walks in, carrying only a small duffel bag.
Room 105 is on the third floor, and if it weren’t for what she knows is waiting for her, or rather who is waiting for her, Sophie would let her self get sucked in to the wonderful elegance of the hotel.
She and Deryk go to a different one each time, Deryk always choosing, handling the arrangements and footing the bill.
This one is particularly extravagant, and she almost feels bad for the acts she is about to under take in one of the rooms. With the smirking thought, she picks up pace, arriving at the door quickly.
As if he’s got a sixth sense, or has been waiting impatiently, Deryk opens the door, in just a towel, just after her knuckles knock on it.
Before she can even breathe he pulls her inside, and has her up against the back of the door, his mouth searching hers hungrily.
When they break for air however, Sophie catches a glimpse of some new markings on his face. There’s a small cut below his right eye, with slightly green and yellow bruising around it.
“Holy shit Deryk, what the hell happened to your face?”
Her hand sneaks up to his face to gently touch her finger to the battle wound, and the corner of his mouth twists ever so slightly.
“You didn’t watch the game on Wednesday night?”
No, she had been trying desperately to soothe a grumpy baby Julian, who was crying uncontrollably, and help Anna with homework. But choosing to keep her home-life hidden, Sophie lies. “Uh, no. I was caught up with something else. Who did this?”
“Prust wanted to try be a man,” he smirks, “But don’t worry, you should see the damage I did to him.”
Sophie smiles, her eyes mesmerised by the marks. “Oh I’m not worried, I’m just wondering how it is that seeing these bruises on anyone else would terrify me, but on you, it’s the biggest fucking turn on ever.”
With a light squeal, Deryk picks her up and carries her across the room to the bathroom, setting her down by the shower. With him against her, Sophie searches up his neck and across his face until she meets his lips, letting him slip his tongue into her mouth. His hands fumble for the zip at the back of her dress, but Deryk Engelland is no newbie, and the material soon falls to a puddle at her feet.
His towel joins it, then her underwear, and finally her bra, as Deryk’s mouth leaves hers to introduce themselves to her breasts.
“Oh god,” she moans. “Deryk……”
“I need to get inside you,” he growls breathlessly.
“Please…..” she replies.

Lying tangled in bed later, after moving from the bathroom to the kitchen counter, then the dinning room table, and finally the couch, Deryk nips at Sophie’s ear.
“Jeez Soph, that was….fuck I don’t even have words for that.”
Curled against his chest, she sits up slowly, edging over slightly and rolling up on to her elbow.
Seeing an expression cover her beautiful features that he hasn’t seen before, and doesn’t particularly like, he smoothes his hand through her hair gently. “What’s wrong?”
For all the mystery there is to Sophie, Deryk has never seen her sad. He’s seen dominating Sophie, giggling Sophie, sexy Sophie and intoxicated Sophie, but never sad Sophie, as she looks now.
“Do you have sex with Lindsay?”
“What?”
Sophie chews her lip. “I just mean…she’s gorgeous, and she is your wife. You guys must sleep in the same bed, so it’s more than natural that you two have sex. But then there’s you and me and when we are together…..”
His hand rounds from behind her head to hold her cheek and he leans in, kissing every bit of breath from her.
His forehead presses against hers. They’ve never spoken of stuff like this before. “Where’s this coming from Soph? Is this about what Nisky said at the game? Or about what happened in the club? Because I’m sorry about that. Linds….she’s a big romantic, she gets swept up in trying to play match-”
Sophie pulls away, not wanting to let the thoughts of her recent conversation with Matt, or the night at the club infiltrate their night together.
“No, it’s not that. It doesn’t matter. Forget I said anything.”
Deryk sits up behind her, his lips kissing the skin of her shoulder. “It matters a lot Sophie. I shouldn’t have put you in a situation like that.”
She turns in his arms, and presses her self tight to him.
The clock on the night stand shows the hours that have raced by already, and Sophie knows her situation is much like Cinderella’s. If only for the fact that it comes with an expiration date.
“I don’t wanna talk about it Deryk. I can think of a million other things I’d rather do. Well, actually only one thing.”
He had been prepared to push the issue to communicate his apologies, but Sophie’s hands and her mouth are very persuasive.
“Come on Deryk,” she whispers in his ear. “Remember all those promises you made on the phone? It’s time to pay up.”

*****

Two days later, Sophie stands at the counter of a small pawn shop.
A man appears from out the back, smiling a “Hello” as he recognises her face. He has served her here a couple of times.
“Ms Markham, how can I help you?”
Whether it’s the slight seediness of the shop or perhaps the guilty reason of why she is here, Sophie feels like running. But she can’t, not when she has people depending on her.
Under the watchful eye of the store owner, she slips her hand into her pocket, and retrieves a little black jewellery bag. After pinching the cord open, she slowly pulls out a gold necklace, revealing a beautiful gold heart studded with jewels hanging off the bottom.
As she lays it on the counter, the memories flood back to her in flashes.
The feel of the cold chain around her neck. The grin in Deryk’s eyes. The tone of his voice when he said, “I saw this and I had to get it for you Soph. I want you to wear it when we’re not together, and I want you to think of me.”
She knows that the next away game in a few days will bring a phone call from Deryk, and the question of whether she is wearing the necklace, if only to add to the visual fantasy for himself.
Her foot bounces nervously and her fingers grip around the chain.
“Do you want to sell this to me?”
She bites her lip. She doesn’t want to part with it, but she doesn’t have a choice. She remembers pleading with Annabelle’s teacher last week, asking for just a few more days to pay the rest of the field trip fee.
Lying in the phone call to Deryk will just be something she has to do. It won’t be easy. But it will be worth it when Anna goes off on her trip, with all her other class mates, happy and excited.
“Ms Markham,” the owner presses again, “Do you want to sell me this necklace?”
Begrudgingly, Sophie nods. She had liked wearing it underneath her shirts the past few days, feeling like it was a token a love, a mark of ownership on her. Something that said, ‘Some one cares about me enough to buy me this’.
But she understands that Anna comes first.
“Yes,” she finally answers the man. “Yes, I would like to sell you this.”
Her chest cracks a little when his fingers pick it up and take it from her, but her fathers words swim in her head.
‘Take everything you can from a man’ his voice reminds her, ‘They like to wine and dine and play games, so you have to play smarter. Take everything but don’t give your heart’.

As Matt lies on his couch near sleep, the encounter at Sophie’s house springs to his mind. The big screen TV that’s on in front of him flashes a show called ‘Naked and Funny’, but he’s not quite paying attention.
He is instead wondering how people can be so different what you first think.
The phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’ comes to mind, and shakes his head.
With all the snippets of information he had gathered of her before the altercation in the hallway after the game, both confirmed and inferred, he had pieced together a picture of her, reinforced by her outfit and beauty when he did first she her. It was easy to presume, to treat her like she was what he’d told her –a bored college girl who wanted a big star and didn’t care who she had to step on to get him.
But at her house, he’d seen a different side of her. Almost a whole other person.
Someone who clearly works hard, takes care of her family, and has a lot more responsibilities than she perhaps signed up for.
He laughs when he thinks of what his mother told him when he entered the NHL. - “Don’t sleep around Matty, don’t be ‘one of those guys’. I don’t want grandchildren yet. Treat a girl nicely. Date a respectable girl. One who works hard and has values.”
If it weren’t for her adultery with his married team mate, Sophie would probably fit the bill perfectly.