Fic Post - RPF, NC-17
DON'T YOU JUDGE ME. *deeeeeeeeeeeep breath* Here we go. Or just me... go. Probably that last one.
Title: Broken Inside
Author: Stoney
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The life and times of Anna Nicole Smith, or: what made such a pretty girl into such a mess.
Warnings: This has incest. Lots. This has sad broken people that don't get better. Also, drugged non-con, step-parent sexual abuse and a run-on sentence. If that's upsetting to you, you shouldn't read this. This isn't a mockery of ANS, this isn't a glorification of things that are wrong, and most importantly: this isn't true. Some of it is. Okay, a lot. But the incest is speculation. Don't come whining to me about how gross I am, etc. You won't tell me anything I don't already know for myself. :)
A/N: Written for dancetomato as a form of penance. She has to hear a full confession from me so I can be absolved, is all. Thanks to the BFF for the beta work, any remaining mistakes are mine. Coming in at just under 8500 words.
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Broken Inside
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"It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one, Vickie Lynn."
That was some of the advice her mama Virgie had given her while she was growing up. Anna Nicole Smith, born Vickie Lynn, had been ten years old at the time. Other stellar bits of advice her mama had taught her were "you gotta spend money to make money" and "nobody likes a woman that cries all the damn time. Cheer the fuck up."
Her mama sent her to live with her aunt in Mexia to try and keep her from cutting class and "getting in the way." She'd shown up for just about half of the eighth grade, but Anna didn't understand most of what those teachers were talking about. She liked drawing, even though she wasn't any good at it, and she liked playing dress-up, but it hadn't been safe to play dress-up at home anymore.
Her step-daddy Joe had surprised her one afternoon when she'd skipped out of math class in eighth grade. She got naked, and put on her mama's high heels, sexy bras and bright red lipstick while watching herself in the mirror over her mama's worn-out vanity in her bedroom. Anna didn't have boobs enough to fill out her mama's bra and the strap kept slipping off her shoulder. She blew a kiss at her reflection and wondered what she'd look like if she ever filled out.
She jumped when she felt a rough hand slide the strap back in place. His warm breath on her neck gave her a shiver. She was scared, but she felt a hot weight in her groin and shifted her legs to keep it there.
"You look purdier than your mama ever did, Vickie Lynn. But only whores wear that color red lipstick. You ain't a whore, now, are you?"
He kept rubbing his hand on her shoulder drawing soft circles lower and lower. His knuckles brushed against the side of her breast and she opened her lips in a soft exhale.
"No, sir."
"You sure about that?"
The back of his hand rubbed all along the side of her breast while stroking her arm, then moved over the small pert fullness hiding under hot pink lace that was two cup sizes too big. He caught her nipple between two fingers and squeezed gently, rolling it in between and giving it gentle tugs. She pushed back with her ass and rubbed against her step-daddy, liking the hardness pushing back against her. His mouth breathed hot and tickly behind her ear.
"I asked if you's some kind of whore. Are you, baby girl? Are you a little whore?"
She bit her lip and watched what he was doing to her in the mirror, noticing the bits of silver poking through the worn glass. He wasn't in the reflection, and that was just fine. He had big hands, a little greasy from working on cars and they almost covered her whole breast. She tilted her head back, eyes still on the mirror watching as he slid his fingertips under the lace edging and pushed her breast up out of the cup, the rough pad of his thumb stroking her hard nipple. She tilted her head so her long blonde hair tickled the top of his hand - so white against his tanned skin.
He was bending down, his mouth open, and she felt like soda bubbles popping and rushing in her belly, ready to make her whole body burst open with excitement and fear when a hard yank to her hair made her scream out. Her mama had come home early.
Virgie yanked her back from her step-daddy roughly, then turned to him, beating him over the head with her fists.
"God damned asshole! God damned cheatin' sonuvabitch!"
Anna ducked under her her mama's flailing arm and tried to make it to her room, but Virgie sent her a swift kick to the ass, never missing a beat. "What the hell you doin' dressin' like that? Stealin' my clothes and my man! Good for nothing filthy bitch of a girl..."
Anna ran as fast as she could down the hall and pushed her old white-painted dresser with half the knobs missing up against the door. She threw herself down on her bed, her hands in fists at her belly and her face buried in a pillow, and tried to slow her breathing. That hot swelling in her groin hadn't gone away. She bunched up some of her blanket and pushed it against the spot she'd discovered one night and rocked her hips down and back, pushing that knot of fabric against herself. Some of that pressure went away, but even more built up low like a snake in her belly. Her breath hitched and her legs fluttered after a moment, and it felt like stars bounced off her body and shimmered down her legs.
A few minutes later, her mama slammed the door open wide enough to throw an old ratty baby-blue suitcase in the room. "Pack your things. You're gonna stay with your Aunt Kay. Let's see what she can make of you, because Lord knows I've tried my best by you."
Anna figured her mama didn't know what trying your best was, but then again, that was something Anna's teachers had said about her, too. Her step-daddy didn't look at her when she climbed into the back of her mama's police cruiser to be driven the hour and a half to her aunt's house. No one looked at them when they drove in that car - they were all afraid they'd done something wrong and were gonna get pulled over. She got tired of watching the empty highway coming at them through the bars. There was a whole lot of nothing to look at in between Houston and Mexia.
Anna didn't mind her aunt's house too bad. She gave Anna hugs every now and then, something her mama hadn't done since she couldn't remember when. She walked into her new school for the start of ninth grade and walked right back out. Just a bunch of ugly fat girls who wore too much makeup in all the wrong ways and boys that had big ears, spotty faces, and cheap cars. Not one of them was as good looking as her step-daddy had been, and that went for the teachers, too. Sometimes she'd get bored and go hang out behind the band hall where the kids smoked, but she didn't bother doing any of her schoolwork and told the principal that she was done at the start of what would have been her sophomore year.
Her aunt said she didn't have to go back. "The world needs ditch diggers, too." Anna finally got a job working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken off the main highway, which was where all the truckers came and hung out. She liked how much they tipped her based on how she dressed, and if she blew them kisses. Sometimes they'd pull her into their laps, and it felt like when her step-daddy had pressed up behind her as she ground her ass into him. Hot, hard and wrong. Well, she knew she was supposed to think it was wrong, but there was something satisfying about a man looking at her like she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Hungry, like.
One time some trucker had caught her out back as she was carrying out the garbage. She'd been flirting with him while he ate his supper, and laughed when he said he wanted cherry pie. They didn't sell that flavor, only apple. He smiled and walked towards her; she backed up away from the glow of the Klieg lights over the bin until her back pressed against the rough stucco wall of the building. She bit her lip and grabbed at the top of her shirt, like a little girl afraid. She didn't think she was afraid. Maybe a little. That hot need was building in her again at the desire all over that man's face. She thought he'd try and cop a feel under her shirt, but his hand shot out and gripped right between her legs, his fingers kneading at the place she liked to touch when she was supposed to be sleeping.
She closed her eyes and gasped. He rubbed the flat of his hand on the front of her jeans and then back in tight up against her. She clutched her thighs around his hand and moaned when he started kissing the side of her neck.
"Ain't you just the prettiest thing. I want to eat you all up. You want me to? Damn girl, you're hottern' a two dollar pistol."
If she didn't look at him, she could imagine it was her step-daddy Joe with his big hands that were so gentle. The trucker had that oil smell on him like Joe'd had, but he wasn't gentle. The trucker roughly grabbed at her zipper trying to get her pants off. She started panicking. It was like that time when she was thirteen and her mama's partner had made her touch him when no one was in the station house. She didn't want to, but he squeezed her wrist so hard, she thought it would break. He shoved down on her head and rubbed himself all over her mouth, then grabbed her throat and said if she bit, he'd hit. He had a box of wet wipes in his desk drawer for her face when he was done.
When her mama had asked her the next day why she was wearing a long sleeve turtleneck in the middle of summer, she had shown her the bruises and told her what had happened.
Virgie had slapped her, asked her why she had to take all the men away, then left without saying goodbye. She came home late that night and told Anna that's what she got for acting the way she did, always trying to get people to look at her.
When that trucker started pushing her shoulders to make her get down on her knees, something rose up in Anna and she shoved back. She tried slapping his hands away and telling him to back off. He slapped her across the face.
"You ain't nothing but a tease. Lemme show you what I do with teases, you bitch."
He grabbed her hair; she felt some of it tear out and saw it float away under the bright light, and he shoved her down to her knees. She closed her eyes and screwed her face up tight when the hand in her hair let go. She looked up and saw the new cook, Billy Wayne, with a heavy can in his fist. The trucker was on his side, holding his bloody nose.
"The hell's wrong with you? She said no."
Anna looked up at Billy Wayne. He wasn't much older than her, if not the same age. He was okay to look at, nothing special, but he was the first person that ever stood up for her. She took his offered hand, and one year later, gave him hers in marriage.
They had all sorts of dreams for the future. She told him she was having a baby, and he seemed real happy about it at first. She got mad at him towards the end when he went out drinking every day while she was stuck in their trailer getting fat and miserable. He bitched a lot at them not having as much money anymore, now that she couldn't work the last month of her pregnancy. Billy Wayne stopped looking at her with that hungry look the larger she got, and she had hoped that after the baby came that look would come back. It didn't, and they split up when her new baby boy was one year old.
One bright light in that hard time was her beautiful baby boy, Daniel. She thought to herself that there had maybe never been a baby so perfect and round as hers was. She hated putting him in his crib, and had stopped altogether when he was two months old. She loved how he felt lying against her chest, warm and soft. Nursing had taken some to get used to, but it left her feeling so loved and connected to her baby that she stuck by it. Besides, nursing was free and formula cost an arm and a leg.
Her mama came to see the new baby when he was a few months old and got on to Anna for "leaving her boob out for God and man to see." She told her mama how natural nursing was, and her mama told her she was sick in the head. She didn't feel sick; she felt good and right for the first time in her life.
Her aunt had kicked her out for not working, so Anna and Daniel had to move back to Houston so she could be close to her mama. Virgie wouldn't let Anna back in the house, claiming that she and Joe were having enough problems without adding another, so Anna moved in with some old friends and took baby Daniel to her mama's house while she worked at Wal-Mart during the day. That wasn't bringing in enough money, so she decided to take her friend's advice and go work at a strip-joint. That old feeling of being loved because she was being watched came back.
Anna loved working the pole. She loved giving sultry looks to men with money that folded. But most of all, she loved being in control. Some old man started coming in regularly just to see her. She'd had guys that did that on occasion, but would move on to other dancers when they realized she wasn't going to give anything up for free. This old guy didn't mind, though. He even liked it when Anna talked about her baby, who was now staying full time with her mama.
She started crying while giving him a lap dance. He held her and let her cry about how she missed the one person in this whole world that really loved her, her baby boy. Daniel was five now, and she was missing all of his life, she cried. The old man, J. Howard Marshall, told her he loved her, and that he would help her get her boy back. She had sex with him that night, and didn't charge him a penny. She also didn't give back the few thousand dollars he gave her before heading back to his house.
J. Howard gave her more money to get implants and, later, some professional headshots done. She sent them to Playboy, and after a few months of not knowing if she'd made it, she finally got a letter in the mail from Hugh Hefner himself. She was going to be on the cover of Playboy. She had to fly out to the mansion and do a few weeks of promotional work, and wasn't allowed to call J. Howard. The second night she was at the mansion, she was invited up to Hugh's bedroom and was told he liked being called "daddy" and his wife Kimberly didn't like to share unless she was a part of it.
Anna had seen the girls at the strip club getting it on with each other, and didn't think much of it. She liked that Hefner had a large mirror over his bed and how beautiful she and Kimberly looked in it. Kimberly whispered before they got started to "follow me, and just do what I tell you." If Anna thought it was strange that there was male gay porn on the big screen in Hefner's room, she didn't say anything about it. She ran the backs of her hands up Kimberly's calves while Kimberly washed Hefner's cock off with a hot towel, then tugged on her nipples for him while Kimberly sucked him off for a moment. Kimberly climbed off and laid next to Hefner, pointing at her crotch, then beckoning Anna with a crook of her finger.
Hefner jerked himself while Anna settled herself between Kimberly's legs and blew softly on her before tracing Kimberly's cunt with the tip of her tongue. Kimberly kept brushing Anna's hair out of her face so she could see how she looked, and Anna thought that had been really sweet of her. Kimberly moaned when Anna slipped two fingers deep inside of her. Anna flicked her tongue across Kimberly's clit while pumping her fingers in and out. Hefner stroked both of their heads and said, "My two beautiful girls. Someone needs to take care of Daddy." Anna pouted when Kimberly sat up and straddled Hef, who was lying down. She didn't like to be left out. Kimberly pulled Anna to her and kissed her deeply while bouncing on Hef.
Anna stayed for three weeks, and she always looked back on that time as spending time with her "real family." Kimberly was a little bit older than Anna, and she liked to pretend they were sisters. Hefner asked her if she wanted to move in and stay there full time, but Anna told him that she had her daddy back home that was missing her. J. Howard was a billionaire and a lot older than Hefner, so he understood. It wasn't like he didn't have a bevy of girls lined up to fill in. He kissed Anna, paid her her month's salary, and told her she would always be one of his special friends. Anna spent a few hours with Kimberly in the latter's bedroom letting her know how much she would miss her. There was something so warm and gratifying about sex with a girl, she learned. All the soft curves caressing each other, the full lips. Anna loved how it felt to have someone with long hair between her thighs, and the feeling of full breasts on her inner thighs.
She went back home to Houston and J. Howard, full of ideas of making it big in Hollywood and being the next Marilyn Monroe. Hefner had allowed Anna to stay in the room where Marilyn lived for a year, and she later told J. Howard that Marilyn's spirit had entered her, telling her to go for it. But it was going to cost. Anna didn't mind asking her sugar daddy for money. If he didn't want to give it, he wouldn't. J. Howard had refused to give her money to buy her cousin a little house outside of Houston. He wouldn't let her take the limo out with some of her friends from the club, saying they were just using her. Anna knew they were using her, but it was fun to go out with a bunch of girls looking good. More fun than sitting in all by herself.
She finally agreed to marry J. Howard when he promised to get her son Daniel into the best private school he could find. She had gone to her mama's to spend the day with her family, and she couldn't get Daniel to come sit on her lap. He said seven was too old to sit in his mama's lap. That sounded like Virgie's influence. She got her boy away from that house as quick as she could. They moved into J. Howard's mansion and Daniel was the ring-bearer in the wedding ceremony.
Anna didn't share a room with J. Howard. They both knew that he was an old man that needed his sleep, but he loved how sweet his little girl was to him. Anna loved him, but was honest with her new husband about needing a young man to satisfy her. He didn't mind her flings, as long as that's all they were. Anna hated sleeping alone, and usually crawled into bed with Daniel, trying to make up for all the years she had missed. He was going to be leaving for school soon, and she wouldn't see him until summertime.
Saying goodbye to her boy again almost broke her heart. J. Howard was real good to her those next few weeks, taking her shopping, telling her how pretty she was, encouraging her to get more work done and headshots and to send them in to various places. She was hired by Guess not too long after, and that took away the loneliness of missing her baby boy. She was finally going to make it, finally be somebody and prove her mama wrong. She wanted to be able to give her boy everything she never had growing up.
J. Howard died before they reached their second anniversary. Anna had given him a special bath, just like he liked, earlier that night, and he hadn't had a strong heart to begin with. All those fears of being alone and poor and without anyone to take care of her came flooding back, intensified when her step-son (thirty years her senior) declared she had no right to the money J. Howard had promised her and Daniel.
Her son came home for the funeral, but was scared of all the paparazzi and cameramen that followed him and Anna everywhere they went. People shouted "Daniel! Daniel!" every time he stepped out of the house. Once, he caught a man with a camera and a duffel bag in the bushes inside the courtyard. He couldn't get to sleep for a few nights after that. Anna brought him into her lavish suite every night, rocking him, smoothing his hair back from his head and smothering him with kisses and her overwhelming need. He asked his mama if he could go back to school, and she could tell he was missing his friends and his quiet life. She cried and asked him if he still loved her, and didn't he need her anymore?
He never spoke much, just let himself be pulled into her lap and be cuddled. She let him go with promises of bringing him home for his birthday so he could do whatever he wanted, and she would make sure it was the best party he'd ever have. Anna got bogged down in the estate proceedings and began to rely on her attorney, Howard. K. Stern more and more.
He convinced Anna that her son was growing up and didn't want to be coddled any more by his mama. He was able to say it in a way that made sense, and didn't seem so cold. Sometimes she'd get mad thinking about how much she wanted her boy home, but no one would go out there to that school of his and just get him and bring him back home to her where he belonged. Anna's doctor, the one Stern had recommended, diagnosed her with some disorders and gave her some prescriptions. She stopped worrying so much about her son. Howard was taking real good care of her.
She started gaining weight and lost the Guess contract that had put her on the map. Howard tried to get her more work, but it was hard. He arranged with E! Networks to film a "reality show" based on her every day life, and he would be one of the stars. A camera crew moved in to her house. Sometimes the crew would take her outside on her balcony and let her rest away from Howard. Anna thought they were real nice guys, but she wished they'd look at her like she was hot, instead of looking at her like she was something to pity. It reminded her of Billy Wayne when she was pregnant.
Anna was moving in and out of a hazy cloud most of the time. When Daniel was brought home on school vacations or to film segments of the show, the cloud that had taken over her life would lift. Once she looked down into her hand at the pills lying there. Half of them didn't look like her regular prescriptions. She lifted her head with not a little effort and saw Daniel standing there, a worried look on his face.
"Baby, Mama needs to have three blue ones, why don't you go get Mama her right pills, m'kay?"
She leaned against the headboard of her bed and blinked several times. Daniel cupped her hand and lifted it to her mouth.
"No, Mama, those are the right ones. The doctor said you don't need all those other pills today. Them's just aspirin. Go on and take them. Please?"
He held a glass of water out to her, making sure she swallowed them all. Daniel had gotten his driver's permit and snuck her into his car, away from the camera crew sitting in the living room interviewing Howard. Her personal assistant Kimmie gave them both a wink and stood in front of the door so they could sneak past.
"Daniel, baby... You know your mama loves you better'n anything in the whole wide world?"
Daniel smiled an "aw shucks" grin and kept his hands on 10 and 2. "Yes, ma'am."
Anna smiled, her eyelids heavy from all the drugs she'd been taking for the past few years. "Look at you, 'yes ma'am!' I got myself a real gentleman, don't I?"
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then held his face and wiped off the lipstick print with her thumb. "My handsome boy."
She leaned back against her window and smiled at him. After a moment, her face broke and she started sobbing. "You're the only person that loves me, that really loves me in this whole ugly world. Please don't go back to that school."
She wiped her face with the hem of her shirt and ran her fingers through his hair, sniffing back tears. "You can stay with me. We'll get you a tutor, one of them real smart ones that can keep up with that school, and then we can play every day, won't that be nice?"
She over smiled, patting his cheek and pawing at his shirt. Daniel bit his lip, checked his rear view mirror and pulled the car on to the side of the road behind a few palm trees.
"Mama, I need to tell you something, and I don't think you're going to like it."
"Baby, you can tell me anything you need to. What, you got a girlfriend? You got someone prettier than me, someone that's going to take you away from me?" Her voice broke on the last few words, and she tried to put on a brave face.
"No, I don't have a girl, mama, I got you! What would I want someone else for?" He smiled sweetly. "No, I need to tell you something I saw last night, and it's got me real worried."
He gripped the steering wheel, and she could see he was trying to get something bad out. "I got up last night to check on things around the house, and I saw --" He turned to face her and took Anna's hand. "Mama, I don't like that Howard. I don't like him one bit. He's a liar and... and an asshole!"
"What?" She wasn't expecting that. She shook her head in disbelief. "Daniel, you got it all wrong. He's been taking care of me. He got me that job with E!, and he's been trying to get me a movie deal, he's been taking care of all that mess with Pierce so I don't have to worry about it. Honey, he's been making sure I'm okay."
Daniel's face fell, but he still had a look of determination on his face. "No, ma'am, I don't think he's taking care of you. Last night, I saw him go into your room."
"Huh?"
"He went into your room and stood right next to your bed. I saw him touch you, but you didn't move or nothing. I thought you must have been fast asleep, because he was touching your hair and your..." Daniel broke off and turned beet red.
Anna snorted, "My dirty pillows?"
Daniel smiled. "Yeah. I mean, he was touching you. And I think he was touching--. Okay, this is just nasty. I don't like him, and I don't think he should be staying home with us."
Anna stroked Daniel's bangs from his face and tickled his nose with her manicured nail. "Well, if you just wanted your mama to yourself, that's all you had to say!"
She simpered and cooed at him the rest of the drive along the coast. Later, they got home and Anna told Howard that she and her son wanted some family time by themselves. One of the cameramen handed a video game to Daniel, and they started talking about PlayStation. Howard took Anna roughly by the elbow and led her out of the room.
"I really don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart. What if Pierce calls? Or someone shows up that shouldn't be here? No, I don't think I need to go anywhere."
Anna stuck her chin out. "Well, I didn't ask you what you think, did I? Daniel says he and me need to spend some time alone, and I think he's right."
Howard's eyes narrowed and he looked into her face with scrutiny. "What's gotten in to you? What's making you so hostile? Dr. Kapoor says that aggression is a sign of your disorder coming back. Did you take your pills?"
Anna looked away. "Yep. Sure did."
"Anna."
Howard led her into the kitchen and pulled out a group of pill bottles, dumping various pills into his hand. He got a wine cooler from the fridge and held them out to her. "It'll take the edge off. That way you and Daniel can have a good time without you getting worked up."
She took a swig of the wine cooler, but left the pills in his hand defiantly.
"Please, Anna. I just want you to be okay. You know I care about you. I care so much... Sweetheart, where would you be if you didn't have me looking out for you?"
Something in her was moved, and she took the pills. Howard kissed her between her eyebrows and told her she was a good girl.
Later that night, Anna was sprawled on her bed with the TV on. The world was spinning like she'd had a lot to drink, but she didn't remember having much more than a few sips off her wine cooler. She kept imagining people outside her bedroom window, but she couldn't get up to close the drapes. She swallowed thickly and cried out, "Daniel." She could barely hear herself. She tried again with more force.
"Daniel."
She moved her leg off the bed, thinking that if she could just get her feet on the floor, she could stand up.
"Daniel."
She rolled to her side and tried to push herself up when she felt two hands rolling her back.
"Shhh. Just sleep for a bit. Daniel's busy with his friends, and doesn't want to be disturbed. Let me help you, Anna. Let me be here for you."
She blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus, and saw the harsh nebbish face of her attorney inches from her own. "No... I want... my boy."
Howard started crying. "Why don't you ever want me? Why don't you ever call for me?"
" 'Chu talking 'bout? What..."
She closed her eyes again, her skin tingled and sparkled all over from being drugged. She could feel pressure from Howard moving her on the bed, or pulling on her, she couldn't tell. She had a hard time breathing at one point, and thought he was maybe having his way with her. Anna was too detached from her body to pay much attention; all she could feel was the bed spinning under her, a roaring in her ears, and a weight on her body.
"Daniel."
She thought later that she must have passed out for a bit. As she rose back to consciousness, she heard loud noises arguing near her. It seemed like only seconds and there was a loud bang that made the whole house shudder. A car sped off outside, peeling out in a scream of rubber. Someone was lifting her up and putting water to her lips.
"No... m'not thirsty."
"Please, Mama. You need to drink something."
She struggled to sit up. "Daniel? Is that you?"
"I'm here."
"Baby, I think I'm in real bad shape." Anna's face crumbled and she cried softly, curling in to herself. Daniel climbed up on the bed next to her and wrapped his arms around her, whispering "shh, shh" into her ear.
"Don't leave me. Please don't leave me. I love you, Daniel, and I need you."
"I know."
They stayed like that for a while, holding each other and watching the television. Anna pulled the blankets up over them both and snuggled Daniel up against her chest. "You gonna stay here with me tonight? I don't want to sleep by myself."
"Okay."
She drifted into sleep, still feeling the effects of whatever medication Howard had given her earlier. She woke up to silence - the tv had been turned off. Daniel had his arms wrapped around her with his head nestled between her breasts, his mouth open and breathing deeply. She used her nails to rake his hair back over his head and adjusted her body so she was on her back more comfortably. Daniel nuzzled against her in his sleep and threw a leg over hers. His arms tightened around her.
She slid her hands under his arms and hauled him up gently so his face was against her neck. He shifted so he was on his side under her arm and wrapped his free arm around her, his fingers naturally winding in her thick platinum hair. He smacked his lips and they fell open, breathing deep again. She watched him sleep for a few minutes and whispered to him in between kisses to the top of his head, "I love you, baby. I love you so much."
He kissed her neck at one point, mouth open and slack like when he was a baby, and muttered against her neck, "Love you, Mama."
Anna shifted her hips to get a bunched bit of the sheets from under her and inadvertently drove up against her son's erection.
His hand patted her hair in his sleep, and his thumb lightly danced over the side of her full breast. His mouth was trying to work a kiss into the hollow of her neck. Anna arched her neck to keep her chin out of the way, her eyes closed against what was happening. "Daniel, do you love me? Do you love me?"
A muffled, "so much. I love you so much."
She rocked her hips down into the mattress and then back up, rolling them a bit against him and the proof of his love. Her hands traced lower down his back, pulling his tee shirt up a bit in the back and tickling his skin like she did when he was little and couldn't sleep. He rolled more on top of her, his hips not stopping their motions, and she kept at it, too, looking for heat. She spread her legs a bit and he slipped in between them, bracing himself up on his elbows, kissing her neck softly and sweetly.
She stroked his backside and pushed down a bit, making his body meet hers more fully. She opened her eyes and looked into her boy's face. "You love me? I love you so much, Daniel. You're the only one I really love, you know that don't you?"
Daniel's eyes were glassy, and his face was beet red. He hung his head down, burying his face in her bosom, and she felt him nod.
"You'll let me love you? Don't leave me again. Please, baby."
Anna gripped her son's ass, pulling the cheeks apart a little and grinding him down against her. He shuddered and tried to pull away. She took her hands away to hold his face and smother him with kisses. "We don't have nobody but each other, do we? It's okay. It's okay."
She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, rocking a bit from side to side. "You're all I've got that I care about. Don't you love me? Don't you know how much I need you?"
She felt his cock jump a bit and pushed up against him, trapping his heat with hers. She licked her lips and kissed the corner of his mouth softly. "It's okay, baby. I love you."
Daniel rested his forehead against her neck and muttered, "I love you, too," as his hips began their slow grind back against her. His breath caught and choked back out when Anna pulled the back of his pajama bottoms down and drew her nails over his exposed skin. The front of his bottoms caught on his erection, so he reached between them and pulled them over and kicked them off his legs while Anna lightly traced his cheek and hair.
He got them off and she pulled him back to her, resting his face against her breasts. She wrapped a leg around him and raised her hips against his. He gasped when her wet heat touched him. She closed her eyes and arched her neck, sighing. She held him close and whispered in his ear, "hold on to my shoulders, baby."
He gripped her tightly and slowly slid in with a sharp exhale. She pushed her ass back into the mattress and then pushed back up, driving him deeper. "Ooh, like that. You're doing real good. So good, baby."
Daniel was crying a little, but he didn't stop thrusting into Anna. She stroked his back and kissed his forehead and moaned softly against his lips and still he kept driving into her, making tiny grunts and high-pitched whines. He put one hand out against the head board and jerked sharply several times. "That's it. Just like that, baby."
He bit his lip, eyes screwed tightly shut and, grabbed the headboard with both hands thrusting once more sharply. With a strangled groan that sounded like a sob, he collapsed on his mother. She held him and gave him sweet kisses until he stopped crying. "You do love me, don't you?"
"I love you so much, Mama."
"Will you stay here with me?"
"I will. What we did... it's real bad."
"You know who says it's bad? People that don't understand folks like us. Those same people don't think nothing of electrocuting some poor animal in the ass to make a coat, or the same people that let those babies out in Africa starve with flies in their eyes. They don't matter to us. They can't tell us what's right or wrong."
After two days, they both decided that Daniel should go back to school. It was too hard trying to act normal with everyone around filming everything she did. When he came home from school on vacation, he always stayed in his mom's room. Anna told Howard and Kimmie that she just missed her baby so much. They didn't think much of it, just another of Anna's weird needs. A few years passed with Daniel's trips become less frequent, but always full of secret intensity.
Howard caught them in the act, once. After Anna's boyfriend Larry left - he just didn't make her feel special, and Daniel had broken up with his school girlfriend and had wanted to come home for good - Daniel started staying in her room again. Howard opened the door one morning before the sun had come up and found them both naked, their legs wrapped in a tangle of sheets and flesh. Howard started crying and yelling, and Daniel ran into the bathroom to put something on.
Anna yelled at Howard to get out and leave them alone. Howard threatened her with going public if she didn't do something about this immediately.
"Like what?"
"We're leaving LA. We're going to the Bahamas. I found us a house. Daniel can come for supervised visits. I've earned something, dammit! I've earned something."
"What, you think that forcing me to be with you is going to make me love you?"
Howard calmed down and tried a different tactic. "Anna, I think there's something really wrong here. Maybe it's that you've stopped taking your medications again. I think you need to have a check up by the doctor. You have to know this is wrong."
Daniel quietly left them alone and locked himself in his room. Later, Howard told Anna that he had given Daniel some of her prescriptions to calm him down, that he seemed suicidal. He said it was Anna's fault and she knew better.
She agreed to see the doctor and take whatever he prescribed. She didn't tell him that she took herself to a separate doctor and had a pregnancy test done. It was positive, and she was only a few weeks along. She let Howard have his way with her that night. A month later, she told Howard that she was late on her period, and he got very excited. She told him flat out that she hadn't been with Larry in months, and it must be his. They ignored the fact that it very likely wasn't.
Daniel stayed away for months. He showed up when Anna was several months along. He was so grown up now; he had grown a goatee. He grabbed her up in a bear hug and kissed her over and over as she laughed. He had a look of worry and she shook her head.
"It's Howard's. We're gonna be fine, him and me, okay? Can you be glad for me, honey? Can't you be glad that I'm going to have a beautiful baby girl? I'm gonna name her after you."
Daniel blinked away tears and laughed a bit. "You can't have two of us, Mama."
"No," she swatted his arm. "I'm gonna call her Dannielynn."
Daniel stayed away from her for the most part, but when he got the call that Anna had the baby, he raced to the Bahamas. He got there two days after Dannielynn was born. Howard came out of Anna's room in scrubs and told him the baby was fine, had ten fingers and toes, and was beautiful. Daniel asked how his mother was.
"Fine. She's just fine. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Daniel came in the room. Anna patted the bed next to her hip and had him lay next to her and the baby. "Give her a kiss. Let her know from the first moment that you love her."
Daniel kissed the baby and Howard took a picture. He held the camera away from his face, trying not to notice the similarities, trying to not notice that Anna looked at her son in a way that was entirely wrong. And that Daniel looked at her the same way. He pulled Daniel out of the room on the pretense of letting Anna get some much needed sleep.
"You have to stay away for a while, son."
"I'm not your son."
"Look, I don't want to get into this here," Howard looked around the room as if he expected the paparazzi to appear out of thin air. He pulled Daniel into a corner and whispered furtively. "You have to stay away. If anyone finds out, your mother is as good as dead. She'll never be able to show her face in public again."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Dannielynn. It's... She's yours, Daniel."
Daniel stood stock still, the color draining from his face. "What?"
"The baby. It's your baby. If anyone found out, it would be the end. No money, no work, no nothing. It would all be over. You have to go somewhere and stay away for a while. Let your mother get over this... thing she has for you."
Daniel slumped down into a chair, trying to work his mouth.
"Here. These will help calm you." Howard held out his palm to the boy, then motioned to a water fountain down the hall when Daniel took them in his mouth.
"Let me just sit with her one more time, and then I'll go." Howard reluctantly nodded, and Daniel went to his mother's room and sat in a chair to watch her sleep. He died quickly, and Howard told Anna that he died without any pain. She didn't register that Howard was flushing the contents of various pill bottles down the toilet. They had to sedate Anna to get her out of the hospital.
One of her doctors - she had a whole team of them now watching her every move - explained to her in simple terms that his heart had just stopped beating.
"Like... like a broken heart?"
"Well, technically no, but..." The doctor patted her arm.
She felt like she was sleep walking. Howard told her to get dressed and she did. Howard drove her to this place or that place, and she went. She remembered an interview where she started crying and yelling about her mother, who had resurfaced claiming all sorts of things that Anna had done and lied about.
Howard said they should have a commitment ceremony, that it would prove that he was the father and show the world that they were a solid couple. She shrugged and went along with it. It was easier to have someone else make decisions for her, anyway. Howard told her that people would pay good money to see them get married, and since the case against her inheritance from J. Howard was back in the courts, she could use any money she could get. She didn't care about the money.
The only bright spot in that dark, dark time was Dannielynn. Anna loved holding her, kissing every little toe, every little chubby bracelet on her wrists. Sometimes Howard would find her holding the baby and sobbing, crying out for her dead boy.
"God's punishing me, that's what he's doing."
"No, Anna, that's not what happened. It was just a horrible mistake. I didn't--. It was just one of those accidents."
She stopped letting Howard touch her. She had woken up one night with him in bed next to her and his mouth on her bare shoulder, and she raced out of bed to the bathroom to vomit. Christmas was a blur of crying alone in her room and her hand out to take the new pills her doctors had prescribed. In February she realized that she had forgotten her son's birthday on the 22nd. She packed a bag and flew to Florida, far enough away from her family in Texas and from Howard in the Bahamas. She made a few calls and took the brown paper bags waiting for her in the hotel lobby up to her room. She asked the concierge to bring her some Slim Fasts, chocolate flavor. That was all she had been able to keep down for days.
She looked at the pill bottles and the glass jars in her room's refrigerator and thought about how she'd imagined so many different people having loved her. They all just needed something. They didn't need her. Her mama had needed someone to look after her half-siblings when they'd come around. Her step dad had needed someone to fulfill whatever needs Virgie hadn't fulfilled. Billy Wayne needed a hot cunt and a set of tits on his arm when his buddies came over, he didn't need her. Howard needed money and then eventually the fame. J. Howard loved her, but she couldn't bring herself to love him fully, and she convinced herself the old man just loved how he felt being with her, not who she really was.
Only Daniel. Only her beautiful boy had loved her for being her. He never cared when she got fat, he said there was just more to love. He didn't make fun of her for not knowing stuff. He always looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman alive. Daniel would hug her and the world would stop and her breath would catch and she felt whole. She didn't care that it had been wrong, because didn't she need something? Didn't she deserve some love and joy after all the shit she'd put up with? All the hangers-on that just had their hands out looking for some of that money that never was gonna come?
In the end, she left the chocolate drinks and three of the glass bottles of methadone. Some of her last thoughts as she slipped into darkness were of how Marilyn's ex had roses sent to her grave site every Valentine’s Day, and she didn't have anyone anymore that would remember how much Anna had admired that.
~*~*~
End
Title: Broken Inside
Author: Stoney
Rating: NC-17
Summary: The life and times of Anna Nicole Smith, or: what made such a pretty girl into such a mess.
Warnings: This has incest. Lots. This has sad broken people that don't get better. Also, drugged non-con, step-parent sexual abuse and a run-on sentence. If that's upsetting to you, you shouldn't read this. This isn't a mockery of ANS, this isn't a glorification of things that are wrong, and most importantly: this isn't true. Some of it is. Okay, a lot. But the incest is speculation. Don't come whining to me about how gross I am, etc. You won't tell me anything I don't already know for myself. :)
A/N: Written for dancetomato as a form of penance. She has to hear a full confession from me so I can be absolved, is all. Thanks to the BFF for the beta work, any remaining mistakes are mine. Coming in at just under 8500 words.
~*~
Broken Inside
~*~
"It's just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor one, Vickie Lynn."
That was some of the advice her mama Virgie had given her while she was growing up. Anna Nicole Smith, born Vickie Lynn, had been ten years old at the time. Other stellar bits of advice her mama had taught her were "you gotta spend money to make money" and "nobody likes a woman that cries all the damn time. Cheer the fuck up."
Her mama sent her to live with her aunt in Mexia to try and keep her from cutting class and "getting in the way." She'd shown up for just about half of the eighth grade, but Anna didn't understand most of what those teachers were talking about. She liked drawing, even though she wasn't any good at it, and she liked playing dress-up, but it hadn't been safe to play dress-up at home anymore.
Her step-daddy Joe had surprised her one afternoon when she'd skipped out of math class in eighth grade. She got naked, and put on her mama's high heels, sexy bras and bright red lipstick while watching herself in the mirror over her mama's worn-out vanity in her bedroom. Anna didn't have boobs enough to fill out her mama's bra and the strap kept slipping off her shoulder. She blew a kiss at her reflection and wondered what she'd look like if she ever filled out.
She jumped when she felt a rough hand slide the strap back in place. His warm breath on her neck gave her a shiver. She was scared, but she felt a hot weight in her groin and shifted her legs to keep it there.
"You look purdier than your mama ever did, Vickie Lynn. But only whores wear that color red lipstick. You ain't a whore, now, are you?"
He kept rubbing his hand on her shoulder drawing soft circles lower and lower. His knuckles brushed against the side of her breast and she opened her lips in a soft exhale.
"No, sir."
"You sure about that?"
The back of his hand rubbed all along the side of her breast while stroking her arm, then moved over the small pert fullness hiding under hot pink lace that was two cup sizes too big. He caught her nipple between two fingers and squeezed gently, rolling it in between and giving it gentle tugs. She pushed back with her ass and rubbed against her step-daddy, liking the hardness pushing back against her. His mouth breathed hot and tickly behind her ear.
"I asked if you's some kind of whore. Are you, baby girl? Are you a little whore?"
She bit her lip and watched what he was doing to her in the mirror, noticing the bits of silver poking through the worn glass. He wasn't in the reflection, and that was just fine. He had big hands, a little greasy from working on cars and they almost covered her whole breast. She tilted her head back, eyes still on the mirror watching as he slid his fingertips under the lace edging and pushed her breast up out of the cup, the rough pad of his thumb stroking her hard nipple. She tilted her head so her long blonde hair tickled the top of his hand - so white against his tanned skin.
He was bending down, his mouth open, and she felt like soda bubbles popping and rushing in her belly, ready to make her whole body burst open with excitement and fear when a hard yank to her hair made her scream out. Her mama had come home early.
Virgie yanked her back from her step-daddy roughly, then turned to him, beating him over the head with her fists.
"God damned asshole! God damned cheatin' sonuvabitch!"
Anna ducked under her her mama's flailing arm and tried to make it to her room, but Virgie sent her a swift kick to the ass, never missing a beat. "What the hell you doin' dressin' like that? Stealin' my clothes and my man! Good for nothing filthy bitch of a girl..."
Anna ran as fast as she could down the hall and pushed her old white-painted dresser with half the knobs missing up against the door. She threw herself down on her bed, her hands in fists at her belly and her face buried in a pillow, and tried to slow her breathing. That hot swelling in her groin hadn't gone away. She bunched up some of her blanket and pushed it against the spot she'd discovered one night and rocked her hips down and back, pushing that knot of fabric against herself. Some of that pressure went away, but even more built up low like a snake in her belly. Her breath hitched and her legs fluttered after a moment, and it felt like stars bounced off her body and shimmered down her legs.
A few minutes later, her mama slammed the door open wide enough to throw an old ratty baby-blue suitcase in the room. "Pack your things. You're gonna stay with your Aunt Kay. Let's see what she can make of you, because Lord knows I've tried my best by you."
Anna figured her mama didn't know what trying your best was, but then again, that was something Anna's teachers had said about her, too. Her step-daddy didn't look at her when she climbed into the back of her mama's police cruiser to be driven the hour and a half to her aunt's house. No one looked at them when they drove in that car - they were all afraid they'd done something wrong and were gonna get pulled over. She got tired of watching the empty highway coming at them through the bars. There was a whole lot of nothing to look at in between Houston and Mexia.
Anna didn't mind her aunt's house too bad. She gave Anna hugs every now and then, something her mama hadn't done since she couldn't remember when. She walked into her new school for the start of ninth grade and walked right back out. Just a bunch of ugly fat girls who wore too much makeup in all the wrong ways and boys that had big ears, spotty faces, and cheap cars. Not one of them was as good looking as her step-daddy had been, and that went for the teachers, too. Sometimes she'd get bored and go hang out behind the band hall where the kids smoked, but she didn't bother doing any of her schoolwork and told the principal that she was done at the start of what would have been her sophomore year.
Her aunt said she didn't have to go back. "The world needs ditch diggers, too." Anna finally got a job working at Jim's Krispy Fried Chicken off the main highway, which was where all the truckers came and hung out. She liked how much they tipped her based on how she dressed, and if she blew them kisses. Sometimes they'd pull her into their laps, and it felt like when her step-daddy had pressed up behind her as she ground her ass into him. Hot, hard and wrong. Well, she knew she was supposed to think it was wrong, but there was something satisfying about a man looking at her like she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. Hungry, like.
One time some trucker had caught her out back as she was carrying out the garbage. She'd been flirting with him while he ate his supper, and laughed when he said he wanted cherry pie. They didn't sell that flavor, only apple. He smiled and walked towards her; she backed up away from the glow of the Klieg lights over the bin until her back pressed against the rough stucco wall of the building. She bit her lip and grabbed at the top of her shirt, like a little girl afraid. She didn't think she was afraid. Maybe a little. That hot need was building in her again at the desire all over that man's face. She thought he'd try and cop a feel under her shirt, but his hand shot out and gripped right between her legs, his fingers kneading at the place she liked to touch when she was supposed to be sleeping.
She closed her eyes and gasped. He rubbed the flat of his hand on the front of her jeans and then back in tight up against her. She clutched her thighs around his hand and moaned when he started kissing the side of her neck.
"Ain't you just the prettiest thing. I want to eat you all up. You want me to? Damn girl, you're hottern' a two dollar pistol."
If she didn't look at him, she could imagine it was her step-daddy Joe with his big hands that were so gentle. The trucker had that oil smell on him like Joe'd had, but he wasn't gentle. The trucker roughly grabbed at her zipper trying to get her pants off. She started panicking. It was like that time when she was thirteen and her mama's partner had made her touch him when no one was in the station house. She didn't want to, but he squeezed her wrist so hard, she thought it would break. He shoved down on her head and rubbed himself all over her mouth, then grabbed her throat and said if she bit, he'd hit. He had a box of wet wipes in his desk drawer for her face when he was done.
When her mama had asked her the next day why she was wearing a long sleeve turtleneck in the middle of summer, she had shown her the bruises and told her what had happened.
Virgie had slapped her, asked her why she had to take all the men away, then left without saying goodbye. She came home late that night and told Anna that's what she got for acting the way she did, always trying to get people to look at her.
When that trucker started pushing her shoulders to make her get down on her knees, something rose up in Anna and she shoved back. She tried slapping his hands away and telling him to back off. He slapped her across the face.
"You ain't nothing but a tease. Lemme show you what I do with teases, you bitch."
He grabbed her hair; she felt some of it tear out and saw it float away under the bright light, and he shoved her down to her knees. She closed her eyes and screwed her face up tight when the hand in her hair let go. She looked up and saw the new cook, Billy Wayne, with a heavy can in his fist. The trucker was on his side, holding his bloody nose.
"The hell's wrong with you? She said no."
Anna looked up at Billy Wayne. He wasn't much older than her, if not the same age. He was okay to look at, nothing special, but he was the first person that ever stood up for her. She took his offered hand, and one year later, gave him hers in marriage.
They had all sorts of dreams for the future. She told him she was having a baby, and he seemed real happy about it at first. She got mad at him towards the end when he went out drinking every day while she was stuck in their trailer getting fat and miserable. He bitched a lot at them not having as much money anymore, now that she couldn't work the last month of her pregnancy. Billy Wayne stopped looking at her with that hungry look the larger she got, and she had hoped that after the baby came that look would come back. It didn't, and they split up when her new baby boy was one year old.
One bright light in that hard time was her beautiful baby boy, Daniel. She thought to herself that there had maybe never been a baby so perfect and round as hers was. She hated putting him in his crib, and had stopped altogether when he was two months old. She loved how he felt lying against her chest, warm and soft. Nursing had taken some to get used to, but it left her feeling so loved and connected to her baby that she stuck by it. Besides, nursing was free and formula cost an arm and a leg.
Her mama came to see the new baby when he was a few months old and got on to Anna for "leaving her boob out for God and man to see." She told her mama how natural nursing was, and her mama told her she was sick in the head. She didn't feel sick; she felt good and right for the first time in her life.
Her aunt had kicked her out for not working, so Anna and Daniel had to move back to Houston so she could be close to her mama. Virgie wouldn't let Anna back in the house, claiming that she and Joe were having enough problems without adding another, so Anna moved in with some old friends and took baby Daniel to her mama's house while she worked at Wal-Mart during the day. That wasn't bringing in enough money, so she decided to take her friend's advice and go work at a strip-joint. That old feeling of being loved because she was being watched came back.
Anna loved working the pole. She loved giving sultry looks to men with money that folded. But most of all, she loved being in control. Some old man started coming in regularly just to see her. She'd had guys that did that on occasion, but would move on to other dancers when they realized she wasn't going to give anything up for free. This old guy didn't mind, though. He even liked it when Anna talked about her baby, who was now staying full time with her mama.
She started crying while giving him a lap dance. He held her and let her cry about how she missed the one person in this whole world that really loved her, her baby boy. Daniel was five now, and she was missing all of his life, she cried. The old man, J. Howard Marshall, told her he loved her, and that he would help her get her boy back. She had sex with him that night, and didn't charge him a penny. She also didn't give back the few thousand dollars he gave her before heading back to his house.
J. Howard gave her more money to get implants and, later, some professional headshots done. She sent them to Playboy, and after a few months of not knowing if she'd made it, she finally got a letter in the mail from Hugh Hefner himself. She was going to be on the cover of Playboy. She had to fly out to the mansion and do a few weeks of promotional work, and wasn't allowed to call J. Howard. The second night she was at the mansion, she was invited up to Hugh's bedroom and was told he liked being called "daddy" and his wife Kimberly didn't like to share unless she was a part of it.
Anna had seen the girls at the strip club getting it on with each other, and didn't think much of it. She liked that Hefner had a large mirror over his bed and how beautiful she and Kimberly looked in it. Kimberly whispered before they got started to "follow me, and just do what I tell you." If Anna thought it was strange that there was male gay porn on the big screen in Hefner's room, she didn't say anything about it. She ran the backs of her hands up Kimberly's calves while Kimberly washed Hefner's cock off with a hot towel, then tugged on her nipples for him while Kimberly sucked him off for a moment. Kimberly climbed off and laid next to Hefner, pointing at her crotch, then beckoning Anna with a crook of her finger.
Hefner jerked himself while Anna settled herself between Kimberly's legs and blew softly on her before tracing Kimberly's cunt with the tip of her tongue. Kimberly kept brushing Anna's hair out of her face so she could see how she looked, and Anna thought that had been really sweet of her. Kimberly moaned when Anna slipped two fingers deep inside of her. Anna flicked her tongue across Kimberly's clit while pumping her fingers in and out. Hefner stroked both of their heads and said, "My two beautiful girls. Someone needs to take care of Daddy." Anna pouted when Kimberly sat up and straddled Hef, who was lying down. She didn't like to be left out. Kimberly pulled Anna to her and kissed her deeply while bouncing on Hef.
Anna stayed for three weeks, and she always looked back on that time as spending time with her "real family." Kimberly was a little bit older than Anna, and she liked to pretend they were sisters. Hefner asked her if she wanted to move in and stay there full time, but Anna told him that she had her daddy back home that was missing her. J. Howard was a billionaire and a lot older than Hefner, so he understood. It wasn't like he didn't have a bevy of girls lined up to fill in. He kissed Anna, paid her her month's salary, and told her she would always be one of his special friends. Anna spent a few hours with Kimberly in the latter's bedroom letting her know how much she would miss her. There was something so warm and gratifying about sex with a girl, she learned. All the soft curves caressing each other, the full lips. Anna loved how it felt to have someone with long hair between her thighs, and the feeling of full breasts on her inner thighs.
She went back home to Houston and J. Howard, full of ideas of making it big in Hollywood and being the next Marilyn Monroe. Hefner had allowed Anna to stay in the room where Marilyn lived for a year, and she later told J. Howard that Marilyn's spirit had entered her, telling her to go for it. But it was going to cost. Anna didn't mind asking her sugar daddy for money. If he didn't want to give it, he wouldn't. J. Howard had refused to give her money to buy her cousin a little house outside of Houston. He wouldn't let her take the limo out with some of her friends from the club, saying they were just using her. Anna knew they were using her, but it was fun to go out with a bunch of girls looking good. More fun than sitting in all by herself.
She finally agreed to marry J. Howard when he promised to get her son Daniel into the best private school he could find. She had gone to her mama's to spend the day with her family, and she couldn't get Daniel to come sit on her lap. He said seven was too old to sit in his mama's lap. That sounded like Virgie's influence. She got her boy away from that house as quick as she could. They moved into J. Howard's mansion and Daniel was the ring-bearer in the wedding ceremony.
Anna didn't share a room with J. Howard. They both knew that he was an old man that needed his sleep, but he loved how sweet his little girl was to him. Anna loved him, but was honest with her new husband about needing a young man to satisfy her. He didn't mind her flings, as long as that's all they were. Anna hated sleeping alone, and usually crawled into bed with Daniel, trying to make up for all the years she had missed. He was going to be leaving for school soon, and she wouldn't see him until summertime.
Saying goodbye to her boy again almost broke her heart. J. Howard was real good to her those next few weeks, taking her shopping, telling her how pretty she was, encouraging her to get more work done and headshots and to send them in to various places. She was hired by Guess not too long after, and that took away the loneliness of missing her baby boy. She was finally going to make it, finally be somebody and prove her mama wrong. She wanted to be able to give her boy everything she never had growing up.
J. Howard died before they reached their second anniversary. Anna had given him a special bath, just like he liked, earlier that night, and he hadn't had a strong heart to begin with. All those fears of being alone and poor and without anyone to take care of her came flooding back, intensified when her step-son (thirty years her senior) declared she had no right to the money J. Howard had promised her and Daniel.
Her son came home for the funeral, but was scared of all the paparazzi and cameramen that followed him and Anna everywhere they went. People shouted "Daniel! Daniel!" every time he stepped out of the house. Once, he caught a man with a camera and a duffel bag in the bushes inside the courtyard. He couldn't get to sleep for a few nights after that. Anna brought him into her lavish suite every night, rocking him, smoothing his hair back from his head and smothering him with kisses and her overwhelming need. He asked his mama if he could go back to school, and she could tell he was missing his friends and his quiet life. She cried and asked him if he still loved her, and didn't he need her anymore?
He never spoke much, just let himself be pulled into her lap and be cuddled. She let him go with promises of bringing him home for his birthday so he could do whatever he wanted, and she would make sure it was the best party he'd ever have. Anna got bogged down in the estate proceedings and began to rely on her attorney, Howard. K. Stern more and more.
He convinced Anna that her son was growing up and didn't want to be coddled any more by his mama. He was able to say it in a way that made sense, and didn't seem so cold. Sometimes she'd get mad thinking about how much she wanted her boy home, but no one would go out there to that school of his and just get him and bring him back home to her where he belonged. Anna's doctor, the one Stern had recommended, diagnosed her with some disorders and gave her some prescriptions. She stopped worrying so much about her son. Howard was taking real good care of her.
She started gaining weight and lost the Guess contract that had put her on the map. Howard tried to get her more work, but it was hard. He arranged with E! Networks to film a "reality show" based on her every day life, and he would be one of the stars. A camera crew moved in to her house. Sometimes the crew would take her outside on her balcony and let her rest away from Howard. Anna thought they were real nice guys, but she wished they'd look at her like she was hot, instead of looking at her like she was something to pity. It reminded her of Billy Wayne when she was pregnant.
Anna was moving in and out of a hazy cloud most of the time. When Daniel was brought home on school vacations or to film segments of the show, the cloud that had taken over her life would lift. Once she looked down into her hand at the pills lying there. Half of them didn't look like her regular prescriptions. She lifted her head with not a little effort and saw Daniel standing there, a worried look on his face.
"Baby, Mama needs to have three blue ones, why don't you go get Mama her right pills, m'kay?"
She leaned against the headboard of her bed and blinked several times. Daniel cupped her hand and lifted it to her mouth.
"No, Mama, those are the right ones. The doctor said you don't need all those other pills today. Them's just aspirin. Go on and take them. Please?"
He held a glass of water out to her, making sure she swallowed them all. Daniel had gotten his driver's permit and snuck her into his car, away from the camera crew sitting in the living room interviewing Howard. Her personal assistant Kimmie gave them both a wink and stood in front of the door so they could sneak past.
"Daniel, baby... You know your mama loves you better'n anything in the whole wide world?"
Daniel smiled an "aw shucks" grin and kept his hands on 10 and 2. "Yes, ma'am."
Anna smiled, her eyelids heavy from all the drugs she'd been taking for the past few years. "Look at you, 'yes ma'am!' I got myself a real gentleman, don't I?"
She leaned over and kissed his cheek, then held his face and wiped off the lipstick print with her thumb. "My handsome boy."
She leaned back against her window and smiled at him. After a moment, her face broke and she started sobbing. "You're the only person that loves me, that really loves me in this whole ugly world. Please don't go back to that school."
She wiped her face with the hem of her shirt and ran her fingers through his hair, sniffing back tears. "You can stay with me. We'll get you a tutor, one of them real smart ones that can keep up with that school, and then we can play every day, won't that be nice?"
She over smiled, patting his cheek and pawing at his shirt. Daniel bit his lip, checked his rear view mirror and pulled the car on to the side of the road behind a few palm trees.
"Mama, I need to tell you something, and I don't think you're going to like it."
"Baby, you can tell me anything you need to. What, you got a girlfriend? You got someone prettier than me, someone that's going to take you away from me?" Her voice broke on the last few words, and she tried to put on a brave face.
"No, I don't have a girl, mama, I got you! What would I want someone else for?" He smiled sweetly. "No, I need to tell you something I saw last night, and it's got me real worried."
He gripped the steering wheel, and she could see he was trying to get something bad out. "I got up last night to check on things around the house, and I saw --" He turned to face her and took Anna's hand. "Mama, I don't like that Howard. I don't like him one bit. He's a liar and... and an asshole!"
"What?" She wasn't expecting that. She shook her head in disbelief. "Daniel, you got it all wrong. He's been taking care of me. He got me that job with E!, and he's been trying to get me a movie deal, he's been taking care of all that mess with Pierce so I don't have to worry about it. Honey, he's been making sure I'm okay."
Daniel's face fell, but he still had a look of determination on his face. "No, ma'am, I don't think he's taking care of you. Last night, I saw him go into your room."
"Huh?"
"He went into your room and stood right next to your bed. I saw him touch you, but you didn't move or nothing. I thought you must have been fast asleep, because he was touching your hair and your..." Daniel broke off and turned beet red.
Anna snorted, "My dirty pillows?"
Daniel smiled. "Yeah. I mean, he was touching you. And I think he was touching--. Okay, this is just nasty. I don't like him, and I don't think he should be staying home with us."
Anna stroked Daniel's bangs from his face and tickled his nose with her manicured nail. "Well, if you just wanted your mama to yourself, that's all you had to say!"
She simpered and cooed at him the rest of the drive along the coast. Later, they got home and Anna told Howard that she and her son wanted some family time by themselves. One of the cameramen handed a video game to Daniel, and they started talking about PlayStation. Howard took Anna roughly by the elbow and led her out of the room.
"I really don't think that's a good idea, sweetheart. What if Pierce calls? Or someone shows up that shouldn't be here? No, I don't think I need to go anywhere."
Anna stuck her chin out. "Well, I didn't ask you what you think, did I? Daniel says he and me need to spend some time alone, and I think he's right."
Howard's eyes narrowed and he looked into her face with scrutiny. "What's gotten in to you? What's making you so hostile? Dr. Kapoor says that aggression is a sign of your disorder coming back. Did you take your pills?"
Anna looked away. "Yep. Sure did."
"Anna."
Howard led her into the kitchen and pulled out a group of pill bottles, dumping various pills into his hand. He got a wine cooler from the fridge and held them out to her. "It'll take the edge off. That way you and Daniel can have a good time without you getting worked up."
She took a swig of the wine cooler, but left the pills in his hand defiantly.
"Please, Anna. I just want you to be okay. You know I care about you. I care so much... Sweetheart, where would you be if you didn't have me looking out for you?"
Something in her was moved, and she took the pills. Howard kissed her between her eyebrows and told her she was a good girl.
Later that night, Anna was sprawled on her bed with the TV on. The world was spinning like she'd had a lot to drink, but she didn't remember having much more than a few sips off her wine cooler. She kept imagining people outside her bedroom window, but she couldn't get up to close the drapes. She swallowed thickly and cried out, "Daniel." She could barely hear herself. She tried again with more force.
"Daniel."
She moved her leg off the bed, thinking that if she could just get her feet on the floor, she could stand up.
"Daniel."
She rolled to her side and tried to push herself up when she felt two hands rolling her back.
"Shhh. Just sleep for a bit. Daniel's busy with his friends, and doesn't want to be disturbed. Let me help you, Anna. Let me be here for you."
She blinked, trying to get her eyes to focus, and saw the harsh nebbish face of her attorney inches from her own. "No... I want... my boy."
Howard started crying. "Why don't you ever want me? Why don't you ever call for me?"
" 'Chu talking 'bout? What..."
She closed her eyes again, her skin tingled and sparkled all over from being drugged. She could feel pressure from Howard moving her on the bed, or pulling on her, she couldn't tell. She had a hard time breathing at one point, and thought he was maybe having his way with her. Anna was too detached from her body to pay much attention; all she could feel was the bed spinning under her, a roaring in her ears, and a weight on her body.
"Daniel."
She thought later that she must have passed out for a bit. As she rose back to consciousness, she heard loud noises arguing near her. It seemed like only seconds and there was a loud bang that made the whole house shudder. A car sped off outside, peeling out in a scream of rubber. Someone was lifting her up and putting water to her lips.
"No... m'not thirsty."
"Please, Mama. You need to drink something."
She struggled to sit up. "Daniel? Is that you?"
"I'm here."
"Baby, I think I'm in real bad shape." Anna's face crumbled and she cried softly, curling in to herself. Daniel climbed up on the bed next to her and wrapped his arms around her, whispering "shh, shh" into her ear.
"Don't leave me. Please don't leave me. I love you, Daniel, and I need you."
"I know."
They stayed like that for a while, holding each other and watching the television. Anna pulled the blankets up over them both and snuggled Daniel up against her chest. "You gonna stay here with me tonight? I don't want to sleep by myself."
"Okay."
She drifted into sleep, still feeling the effects of whatever medication Howard had given her earlier. She woke up to silence - the tv had been turned off. Daniel had his arms wrapped around her with his head nestled between her breasts, his mouth open and breathing deeply. She used her nails to rake his hair back over his head and adjusted her body so she was on her back more comfortably. Daniel nuzzled against her in his sleep and threw a leg over hers. His arms tightened around her.
She slid her hands under his arms and hauled him up gently so his face was against her neck. He shifted so he was on his side under her arm and wrapped his free arm around her, his fingers naturally winding in her thick platinum hair. He smacked his lips and they fell open, breathing deep again. She watched him sleep for a few minutes and whispered to him in between kisses to the top of his head, "I love you, baby. I love you so much."
He kissed her neck at one point, mouth open and slack like when he was a baby, and muttered against her neck, "Love you, Mama."
Anna shifted her hips to get a bunched bit of the sheets from under her and inadvertently drove up against her son's erection.
His hand patted her hair in his sleep, and his thumb lightly danced over the side of her full breast. His mouth was trying to work a kiss into the hollow of her neck. Anna arched her neck to keep her chin out of the way, her eyes closed against what was happening. "Daniel, do you love me? Do you love me?"
A muffled, "so much. I love you so much."
She rocked her hips down into the mattress and then back up, rolling them a bit against him and the proof of his love. Her hands traced lower down his back, pulling his tee shirt up a bit in the back and tickling his skin like she did when he was little and couldn't sleep. He rolled more on top of her, his hips not stopping their motions, and she kept at it, too, looking for heat. She spread her legs a bit and he slipped in between them, bracing himself up on his elbows, kissing her neck softly and sweetly.
She stroked his backside and pushed down a bit, making his body meet hers more fully. She opened her eyes and looked into her boy's face. "You love me? I love you so much, Daniel. You're the only one I really love, you know that don't you?"
Daniel's eyes were glassy, and his face was beet red. He hung his head down, burying his face in her bosom, and she felt him nod.
"You'll let me love you? Don't leave me again. Please, baby."
Anna gripped her son's ass, pulling the cheeks apart a little and grinding him down against her. He shuddered and tried to pull away. She took her hands away to hold his face and smother him with kisses. "We don't have nobody but each other, do we? It's okay. It's okay."
She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, rocking a bit from side to side. "You're all I've got that I care about. Don't you love me? Don't you know how much I need you?"
She felt his cock jump a bit and pushed up against him, trapping his heat with hers. She licked her lips and kissed the corner of his mouth softly. "It's okay, baby. I love you."
Daniel rested his forehead against her neck and muttered, "I love you, too," as his hips began their slow grind back against her. His breath caught and choked back out when Anna pulled the back of his pajama bottoms down and drew her nails over his exposed skin. The front of his bottoms caught on his erection, so he reached between them and pulled them over and kicked them off his legs while Anna lightly traced his cheek and hair.
He got them off and she pulled him back to her, resting his face against her breasts. She wrapped a leg around him and raised her hips against his. He gasped when her wet heat touched him. She closed her eyes and arched her neck, sighing. She held him close and whispered in his ear, "hold on to my shoulders, baby."
He gripped her tightly and slowly slid in with a sharp exhale. She pushed her ass back into the mattress and then pushed back up, driving him deeper. "Ooh, like that. You're doing real good. So good, baby."
Daniel was crying a little, but he didn't stop thrusting into Anna. She stroked his back and kissed his forehead and moaned softly against his lips and still he kept driving into her, making tiny grunts and high-pitched whines. He put one hand out against the head board and jerked sharply several times. "That's it. Just like that, baby."
He bit his lip, eyes screwed tightly shut and, grabbed the headboard with both hands thrusting once more sharply. With a strangled groan that sounded like a sob, he collapsed on his mother. She held him and gave him sweet kisses until he stopped crying. "You do love me, don't you?"
"I love you so much, Mama."
"Will you stay here with me?"
"I will. What we did... it's real bad."
"You know who says it's bad? People that don't understand folks like us. Those same people don't think nothing of electrocuting some poor animal in the ass to make a coat, or the same people that let those babies out in Africa starve with flies in their eyes. They don't matter to us. They can't tell us what's right or wrong."
After two days, they both decided that Daniel should go back to school. It was too hard trying to act normal with everyone around filming everything she did. When he came home from school on vacation, he always stayed in his mom's room. Anna told Howard and Kimmie that she just missed her baby so much. They didn't think much of it, just another of Anna's weird needs. A few years passed with Daniel's trips become less frequent, but always full of secret intensity.
Howard caught them in the act, once. After Anna's boyfriend Larry left - he just didn't make her feel special, and Daniel had broken up with his school girlfriend and had wanted to come home for good - Daniel started staying in her room again. Howard opened the door one morning before the sun had come up and found them both naked, their legs wrapped in a tangle of sheets and flesh. Howard started crying and yelling, and Daniel ran into the bathroom to put something on.
Anna yelled at Howard to get out and leave them alone. Howard threatened her with going public if she didn't do something about this immediately.
"Like what?"
"We're leaving LA. We're going to the Bahamas. I found us a house. Daniel can come for supervised visits. I've earned something, dammit! I've earned something."
"What, you think that forcing me to be with you is going to make me love you?"
Howard calmed down and tried a different tactic. "Anna, I think there's something really wrong here. Maybe it's that you've stopped taking your medications again. I think you need to have a check up by the doctor. You have to know this is wrong."
Daniel quietly left them alone and locked himself in his room. Later, Howard told Anna that he had given Daniel some of her prescriptions to calm him down, that he seemed suicidal. He said it was Anna's fault and she knew better.
She agreed to see the doctor and take whatever he prescribed. She didn't tell him that she took herself to a separate doctor and had a pregnancy test done. It was positive, and she was only a few weeks along. She let Howard have his way with her that night. A month later, she told Howard that she was late on her period, and he got very excited. She told him flat out that she hadn't been with Larry in months, and it must be his. They ignored the fact that it very likely wasn't.
Daniel stayed away for months. He showed up when Anna was several months along. He was so grown up now; he had grown a goatee. He grabbed her up in a bear hug and kissed her over and over as she laughed. He had a look of worry and she shook her head.
"It's Howard's. We're gonna be fine, him and me, okay? Can you be glad for me, honey? Can't you be glad that I'm going to have a beautiful baby girl? I'm gonna name her after you."
Daniel blinked away tears and laughed a bit. "You can't have two of us, Mama."
"No," she swatted his arm. "I'm gonna call her Dannielynn."
Daniel stayed away from her for the most part, but when he got the call that Anna had the baby, he raced to the Bahamas. He got there two days after Dannielynn was born. Howard came out of Anna's room in scrubs and told him the baby was fine, had ten fingers and toes, and was beautiful. Daniel asked how his mother was.
"Fine. She's just fine. The most beautiful thing I've ever seen."
Daniel came in the room. Anna patted the bed next to her hip and had him lay next to her and the baby. "Give her a kiss. Let her know from the first moment that you love her."
Daniel kissed the baby and Howard took a picture. He held the camera away from his face, trying not to notice the similarities, trying to not notice that Anna looked at her son in a way that was entirely wrong. And that Daniel looked at her the same way. He pulled Daniel out of the room on the pretense of letting Anna get some much needed sleep.
"You have to stay away for a while, son."
"I'm not your son."
"Look, I don't want to get into this here," Howard looked around the room as if he expected the paparazzi to appear out of thin air. He pulled Daniel into a corner and whispered furtively. "You have to stay away. If anyone finds out, your mother is as good as dead. She'll never be able to show her face in public again."
"What are you talking about?"
"I'm talking about Dannielynn. It's... She's yours, Daniel."
Daniel stood stock still, the color draining from his face. "What?"
"The baby. It's your baby. If anyone found out, it would be the end. No money, no work, no nothing. It would all be over. You have to go somewhere and stay away for a while. Let your mother get over this... thing she has for you."
Daniel slumped down into a chair, trying to work his mouth.
"Here. These will help calm you." Howard held out his palm to the boy, then motioned to a water fountain down the hall when Daniel took them in his mouth.
"Let me just sit with her one more time, and then I'll go." Howard reluctantly nodded, and Daniel went to his mother's room and sat in a chair to watch her sleep. He died quickly, and Howard told Anna that he died without any pain. She didn't register that Howard was flushing the contents of various pill bottles down the toilet. They had to sedate Anna to get her out of the hospital.
One of her doctors - she had a whole team of them now watching her every move - explained to her in simple terms that his heart had just stopped beating.
"Like... like a broken heart?"
"Well, technically no, but..." The doctor patted her arm.
She felt like she was sleep walking. Howard told her to get dressed and she did. Howard drove her to this place or that place, and she went. She remembered an interview where she started crying and yelling about her mother, who had resurfaced claiming all sorts of things that Anna had done and lied about.
Howard said they should have a commitment ceremony, that it would prove that he was the father and show the world that they were a solid couple. She shrugged and went along with it. It was easier to have someone else make decisions for her, anyway. Howard told her that people would pay good money to see them get married, and since the case against her inheritance from J. Howard was back in the courts, she could use any money she could get. She didn't care about the money.
The only bright spot in that dark, dark time was Dannielynn. Anna loved holding her, kissing every little toe, every little chubby bracelet on her wrists. Sometimes Howard would find her holding the baby and sobbing, crying out for her dead boy.
"God's punishing me, that's what he's doing."
"No, Anna, that's not what happened. It was just a horrible mistake. I didn't--. It was just one of those accidents."
She stopped letting Howard touch her. She had woken up one night with him in bed next to her and his mouth on her bare shoulder, and she raced out of bed to the bathroom to vomit. Christmas was a blur of crying alone in her room and her hand out to take the new pills her doctors had prescribed. In February she realized that she had forgotten her son's birthday on the 22nd. She packed a bag and flew to Florida, far enough away from her family in Texas and from Howard in the Bahamas. She made a few calls and took the brown paper bags waiting for her in the hotel lobby up to her room. She asked the concierge to bring her some Slim Fasts, chocolate flavor. That was all she had been able to keep down for days.
She looked at the pill bottles and the glass jars in her room's refrigerator and thought about how she'd imagined so many different people having loved her. They all just needed something. They didn't need her. Her mama had needed someone to look after her half-siblings when they'd come around. Her step dad had needed someone to fulfill whatever needs Virgie hadn't fulfilled. Billy Wayne needed a hot cunt and a set of tits on his arm when his buddies came over, he didn't need her. Howard needed money and then eventually the fame. J. Howard loved her, but she couldn't bring herself to love him fully, and she convinced herself the old man just loved how he felt being with her, not who she really was.
Only Daniel. Only her beautiful boy had loved her for being her. He never cared when she got fat, he said there was just more to love. He didn't make fun of her for not knowing stuff. He always looked at her like she was the most beautiful woman alive. Daniel would hug her and the world would stop and her breath would catch and she felt whole. She didn't care that it had been wrong, because didn't she need something? Didn't she deserve some love and joy after all the shit she'd put up with? All the hangers-on that just had their hands out looking for some of that money that never was gonna come?
In the end, she left the chocolate drinks and three of the glass bottles of methadone. Some of her last thoughts as she slipped into darkness were of how Marilyn's ex had roses sent to her grave site every Valentine’s Day, and she didn't have anyone anymore that would remember how much Anna had admired that.
~*~*~
End