Cave Man's Captive

by Juliana Conners

  Everyone stopped and turned, staring at me.

  “You okay?” asked Darren, a look of worry starting to show on his face.

  “My water just broke,” I said.

  “Sure did,” my mother added, as if there was any doubt.

  We rushed to our cars and headed to the hospital. My mother told Darren to go on without her and that she would follow with a bag of my things.

  Soon after getting to the hospital, the doctor told me that he hoped I was ready, because this baby was on its way out.

  “This little one is determined to be a Christmas baby,” were his exact words.

  “We’re definitely ready,” I told him.

  They didn’t even have time to give me an epidural before the baby was out, while I screamed and writhed in pain. Darren was holding my hand the whole time, until the baby’s head appeared and he proclaimed, “The baby has red hair! Just like you!”

  “Just get it out of me!” I screamed, fearful of how it would feel for the baby to actually come through.

  But, aside from a burning sensation that left almost as quickly as it had come, that was the easiest part. Suddenly, loud crying could be heard and I immediately started crying tears of joy.

  “Would you like to cut the cord?” the doctor asked Darren, as he placed the baby on my chest.

  I looked down at the head full of red hair, already in love, before I realized almost too late that I didn’t even know gender the baby was. Not that it really mattered. I would still be just as in love.

  “What is it?” I asked, kissing the top of the baby’s head as Darren cut the cord.

  “It’s a boy,” the doctor answered. “A Christmas boy.”

  “Oh, my God,” I answered, happily. “A boy!”

  “What should we name him?” asked Darren. We hadn’t discussed names much because we’d agreed it was bad luck. But, I already knew what I wanted.

  “George. For my dad,” I said.

  The baby’s tiny hand closed in a fist around my finger when I said it.

  “George,” Darren answered. “I like that.”

  We smiled at each other.

  Then he added, “You know, I really thought it might be a girl. I’m glad he’s a boy. I love him no matter who he is. But, I also thought, hmmm, maybe we’d have a girl.”

  “We’ll just have to have another one,” I said, and laughed.

  “We sure will,” Darren agreed. “I like the name George. It sounds very royal.”

  “Yes. My mother will be happy,” I said. “Of the fact that he’s here, and that he’s named George. And my dad would be so proud.”

  As if on cue, my mom pushed open the door of the hospital room. She’d never been known for her tact. Darren’s mom was following her, and Bryant squeezed in ahead of both of them.

  “It’s a boy,” Darren announced, proudly.

  “A grandson!” My mother proclaimed. “Your brothers will be so happy. I took them home to finish opening up the rest of their Christmas presents because I didn’t realize this would be so quick. But, I’ll bring them over here to visit soon.”

  “A brother,” Darren’s mom said to Bryant, in a sing song voice.

  “Yay! A brother! Can I see my baby brother yet?” came Bryant’s high-pitched squeal from around the corner.

  “Sure! Come on in, buddy,” I called from the bed.

  He ran over and peeked up at the baby I held in my arms.

  “Yay!” said Bryant again, clapping and jumping up and down. “I have a new baby brother! And he gets to come live with us at our house!”

  “I’m glad you’re so happy about this news,” Darren said, looking relieved. I knew he’d been anxious that Bryant would be jealous. “We’re excited to expand our family. And, on that note, there’s something I was planning to do today, before little George here stole my thunder.”

  “What?” I asked him, looking into his serious green eyes.

  By looking over at my mother’s eyes, which lit up with happiness, I had a good feeling of what was to come. I just couldn’t believe it.

  Darren got down on his knee right there on the cold hospital room floor, and held up a tiny blue box. He opened the lid, revealing a large, shiny diamond ring.

  “Hope, you’ve made me the happiest man ever. Will you do me the honor of marrying me?”

  “Yes!” I exclaimed, reaching over to hug him, then saying, “Ow,” as my rib cage twisted a bit. I was still in fragile condition from giving birth.

  “Are you okay?” Darren asked.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” I continued, not letting a little injury get me down. “Yes, I’m okay, and yes, I’ll marry you, and yes, this is great. I’d be so happy to be your wife.”

  “Daddy’s going to marry Hope,” Darren explained to Bryant.

  He bent down to kiss me, and then kissed Bryant and then little George, right on the top of his head. He was bobbing around looking for my boob, so I decided to try to nurse him.

  “Hooray!” exclaimed Bryant, jumping up and down and clapping his hands. “This is the best day of my life!”

  His excitement was contagious. Darren’s mother and my own both started clapping along with Bryant. And I could agree with him on that.

  A new baby. And an engagement to Darren. On Christmas. This definitely was the best day of my life.

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  Dr. Fake Fiancé: A Virgin and Billionaire Romance

  Copyright © 2017 by Juliana Conners; All Rights Reserved.

  Published by Sizzling Hot Reads; Cover Design

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  Chapter 1 – Elizabeth Jane

  Ten minutes isn't very long. But it feels like an eternity every time I'm waiting for my mom to pick me up in the parking lot by Messer Hall. I swear, I'm the only person whose mother still picks her up from school every day. And "school" for me is now college. So that’s how pathetic it is.

  Ten minutes is the amount of time it takes my mom to drive to my campus after she gets out of work, which ends at the exact same time as my last class of the day— evolutionary psychology. That’s pretty fast in terms of a commute time. But it’s plenty of time for a lot of things I don’t want to happen to happen.

  For instance, right now Michelle walks by me on her way to her car and doesn’t talk to me. And then Diana walks by and does talk to me.

  I don’t know which scenario is worse. Because I have social anxiety, both are bad. The first makes me wonder why barely anyone talks to me. The second reminds me that it’s because I’m weird.

  “Hey there, Elizabeth Jane," Diana calls out to me.

  I envy her stride— a subtle swagger that combines assertive confidence with laid back unconcern. My walk has always been more self-conscious— when I actually have to walk somewhere instead of fading into the background like the wallflower I am.

  “Hi Diana.”

  We sit next to each other in class and sometimes talk afterwards—I guess you could say we’ve become friends. Except “friends” isn’t really something I “do”— because of both my shyness and my over-protective mother who is always telling me that everyone’s out to get me.

  “Want a ride?”

  “Nah, I can’t…”

  I trail off, hoping she leaves before my embarrassing mother shows up.

  “Your mom coming to get you again?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  My eyes dart back and forth along the road leading to the campus from the main street. I’m praying that I don’t see my mom’s car driving along it.

  “That’s what you said last time,” Diana says. “You know, you’re always free to grab a ride with me. That way she doesn’t have to go out of her way. You live over near Ridgemont. So, do I. So, your house is on my way to campus.”

  Now I have to force my eyes not to widen in surprise. I’m paranoid, wondering how
she knows where I live.

  “The Wright dissertation,” she says immediately, as if reading my mind and answering my question for me.

  That’s right. I remember we worked on a class project together— a dissertation on Wright’s Moral Animal— and we had to fill out our addresses on the information sheet.

  I nod.

  “Thanks,” I tell her. “I appreciate the offer.”

  She glances at me as if expecting me to continue— to tell her I’ll take her up on it next time or offer some reason why I can’t. I get that this is how a normal conversation— average human interaction— is supposed to go.

  But I have no excuse to turn down her offer to give me a ride that anyone would understand. Just an overbearing, mortifyingly embarrassing mother who insists on taking me everywhere I need to go and picking me back up again.

  I’ve tried to gently request— and then openly protest— this “preference” of my mom’s, but her response is always to remind me that I live under her roof and she pays my college tuition, so I must do as she says. Then she quotes her favorite Bible verse to me, from Ephesians, which reminds me that if I obey and honor my mother, things will go well with me and I will live long in the land.

  The way she arches her eyebrows and squints her eyes at me after that line is her way of adding her own subtle threat at the end: “And if you don’t, then things won’t go well with you and you won’t live long in the land.”

  I swear, my mom should write her own book of the Bible; she is straight out of the Old Testament sometimes.

  Now, waiting for Diana to leave, I shift my weight from one foot to the other (which reminds me that I need to go on a diet soon or my mother will give me a lecture about sloth and gluttony). The other times that Diana has offered to give me a ride home, she has eventually taken no for an answer, but this time she seems more insistent, or at least intent on talking to me more.

  “That lecture today was pretty wild, right?” she asks, putting the keys she had been carrying into her Coach purse.

  Great. That’s the opposite of what I wanted her to do— which is to keep on walking to her car and then unlock it, get in, and drive home to her normal life with her undoubtedly normal parents. It’s not that I don’t like her— it’s just that I’m completely unable to relate to her or anyone else, it seems.

  “You think?” I shrug.

  It’s my attempt to cut the conversation short by giving a non-committal response, but Diana sees it as an open invitation to continue letting me in on her thoughts.

  “Well, I was particularly fascinated when Dr. Calvert described the sexual instinct of older male animals in the wild; how they want to pounce on the younger and more definitively fertile female animals. Weren’t you?”

  I look at her, then look quickly away while blushing. It’s almost like she could read my thoughts during the lecture.

  I have to admit, while Dr. Calvert had been talking my panties were dripping wet and I was squirming a little uncomfortably in my chair, because the topic was driving me wild— no pun intended. Maybe Diana— who eagerly participates in class discussions about sex and has even brought it up to me outside of class before, telling me she can’t wait to head home to meet a hot date and she hopes he rips her clothes off like tigers in the wild bite their mates before they mount them— has some sixth sense about sexual thoughts and was somehow able to sense my wicked, dirty desires.

  Chapter 2 – Elizabeth Jane

  I’ve never even had sex before— I’ve barely come anywhere close to having anything resembling sex— but older men are my turn-on. It’s almost as if Diana knew this, although I’ve never told a soul. If I could have sex with anyone at all— not that I could, because my mother would probably literally crucify me if she found out— it would definitely be…

  “Dr. Calvert,” Diana sighs, mentioning our professor. “He’s so dreamy. He’s so hot. He’s old, but older men are hot, am I right?”

  I can’t help but smile and nod. Even though I don’t agree with her assessment of Dr. Calvert being all that hot himself.

  “I knew it,” she says, tilting her head back and laughing recklessly, in that way of abandoning herself to joy and merriment that I wish I was capable of doing. “You aren’t as stand-offish as you seem. You do want to bone Dr. Calvert.”

  Now I blush again, and laugh awkwardly.

  “Oh my god,” I tell her. “Not him. But yeah…”

  I stop myself. I’m not about to divulge secrets to someone I don’t even know that well. I’ll write it all down in my diary tonight, and then rip it into tiny shreds and throw it away like I do every night. Every night, that is, since my mom found my last diary, still kept locked and under my mattress like I was twelve years old when really, I was seventeen, and read it and then took me to church to be prayed over and cleansed.

  Luckily, I hadn’t even revealed anything that damning in the diary entries. I haven’t even done anything that damning. However, just little observations such as “the guy in front of me in class turned around and winked at me, and he was super-hot,” were enough for my mother to be convinced that I’m going straight to Hell.

  “What?” Diana asks, shaking her head slightly. “You don’t think it would be hot if Dr. Calvert asked you to stay after class for a little private lesson? And then did a psychological study on you where he needed to tie you up and make you submit to him?”

  “Uhhhh.”

  I don’t even know what sound escapes my lips. Diana’s comments definitely shock me. And she must have gotten the rise out of me that she was wanting, because she laughs heartily.

  Screw her, I think, suddenly becoming angry. This is another reason why I don’t even try to make friends with people. I never know if they’re genuinely interested in me, or trying to mess with me.

  I have the social awareness of an elementary schooler because everyone has always just looked at me and thought, “There’s that girl with the weird mom; she must be weird too,” and it’s become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since I grew up here— and Mom would never in a million years dream of letting me leave— most people have known all the gossip about me for a long time, and passed it on to any newcomers like Diana, who moved here for college.

  It’s a reputation that I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get away from. And sadly enough, it’s right on point.

  “I was just kidding.” Diana playfully elbows me, but I take a step away from her.

  “Actually, no.”

  I decide to be as bold as everyone else seems to be, for once. What do I have to lose? Certainly not my dignity, because I didn’t have that to begin with. I might as well shock Diana and let her know what a whore I am— in my mind at least. Since I’ll never be able to explore my sexual fantasies in real life, thanks to my mom.

  But will she be able to handle all the things I’ve been thinking about another guy— not our professor— doing to me? Or will my thoughts be too sinful even for her to bear? I guess it’s time to find out.

  Chapter 3- Elizabeth Jane

  “I might like it if some guy did that to me,” I tell Diana. “And more. I would like him to whip me. To squeeze my ass and call me his whore. To use me for his own pleasure while also knowing that he is giving me pleasure.”

  “Wow,” Diana says, her eyes wide with surprised glee. “Now that’s what I’m talking about! I didn’t know you had it in you, Elizabeth Jane. Or maybe I did, and that’s why I was trying to draw it out. I was sitting there in class thinking I couldn’t be the only one hot for the teacher while he was talking about animal sex like that.”

  “No,” I tell her quickly, adamantly opposed to her incorrect assumption that it’s Dr. Calvert I’m talking about. “I want someone to do all of that to me and more. But not Dr. Calvert. He’s just not my type.”

  Diana’s mouth drops open and she looks at me as if I just told her I don’t like candy or wine. But then she smiles, obviously approving of my feisty reaction.

  “Okay then,” she
shrugs. “Why not? What do you have against the handsome and erudite Dr. Calvert?”

  “First of all, I don’t think he’s that handsome. I can see how some girls go for the blonde beach-kissed surfer look but that type’s a dime a dozen out here. I don’t like his aloof attitude, as if he knows he’s hot or even thinks he’s hotter than he is. My tastes are for something a little subtler and refined. I prefer the dark and mysterious type, with a gentle confidence and a manner that exudes quiet strength rather than boastful pretty-boy showmanship.”

  “Elizabeth Jane Suttell,” she says, and then whistles in approval. “I didn’t know you had it in you. I’ve heard about what a goody two shoes you are but maybe you’re just a girl who knows what you like and won’t settle for anything else. I knew there was a reason we should be friends.”

  She smiles at me, and I can’t help but smile back.

  We should be friends? We’re friends? I have a friend?

  I don’t know where I found it in me to go on my little tirade against Dr. Calvert, but I guess it shows that I feel comfortable enough around Diana to express it. I wanted to know if she was making fun of me or genuinely interested in my opinion, and if it was the former then I wanted to show her that two can play that game. I can make fun of her— and her precious Dr. Calvert— right back.

  I guess my bold move pays off, because she leans into me as if she’s going to tell me a big secret. But just then, I see my mom’s car pulling into the parking lot and I know it’s time to wrap it up. I can’t believe I even continued the conversation, knowing that my mom was on her way here.

  “So,” Diana asks, her voice in a hushed whisper even though no one else is around to overhear. “If you’d like someone to do that to you, but for some crazy reason I still don’t understand, that someone is not Dr. Calvert, then just who is it that you are wanting to tie you up and treat you like his dirty, filthy whore?”