“Hi, beautiful,” I hear Salvatore say as he comes into the dining room. He walks over to me and plants a chaste kiss on my mouth. His background is Italian, so he has those handsome European features – dark hair, broad shoulders and smouldering, deep, sex-filled eyes.
“Salvatore, come help me in the kitchen,” Dad calls loudly. I look at Salvatore, and his eyes find mine. Dad sounds pissed off.
“What’s going on?” I ask Mum.
“Ask your father,” she answers, shrugging.
Minutes later, Dad walks in holding a casserole dish and Salvatore follows him with a basket of the fresh bread Dad was baking. We all sit at the table and dad begins to dish up our servings.
On Dad’s first bite, I look at Salvatore and knock his knee with my hand under the table. It’s now or never. “So Dad,” I start, then dip my bread into my food.
“Oui,” he says, not lifting his head.
“What is it, Peanut?” Mum asks.
“As you know I’ve been working as an apprentice in the kitchen at the hotel.” Salvatore grips my thigh under the table.
“Of course. I employed you.” Dad blows on a spoonful of food before placing it in his mouth.
“I kind of applied somewhere else.” I look down, avoiding Mum’s and Dad’s eyes, though I can still see them in my peripheral vision.
Dad puts his spoon down, sits back in his chair and crosses his arms in front of his chest. Oh man, I’m in so much trouble.
Mum looks up and smiles. I didn’t tell her what’s going on. Well, not all of it, she doesn’t know about this job opportunity I’ve been offered.
“Where?” Dad asks as his jaw tightens. He looks at Salvatore, as if it’s his fault and he’s trying to blame him.
“Um, it’s sort of at a really good restaurant.”
“That is not an answer. I asked you ‘where’?” I swallow hard.
“It’s in the city,” I slowly say, not really telling him which city.
“Who is it? If I find out it’s someone I do not like, you are not permitted to go.” He rubs his chin with his hand.
“I…ah – it’s um…”
“Spit it out, Emma.” He stands and gets his phone out of his pocket and looks at me, waiting for my answer.
“What are you doing?” I ask as I point to his phone.
“I must talk with the owner and ensure they know who you are.”
“Dad, you can’t do that.”
“Oui, of course I can.” He frowns and runs his hand through his hair.
“Pierre,” Mum warns as she continues to eat her dinner, surprisingly quite calmly.
“Well, who is it?”
Here goes. I know he’s going to freak the hell out. “It’s Cupidité,” I say in a small whisper.
Mum’s spoon clanks heavily against the white bowl, and Dad’s mouth pops open as his eyes widen.
“Cupidité?” Dad asks as he slouches in his chair.
“Yeah,” I whisper as Salvatore squeezes my thigh and I beam to my parents.
“Cupidité?” Dad repeats as his wild eyes find mine.
“Yep.”
“But…that’s…but…” For the first time in my life Dad and Mum are speechless.
“It’s in the city…kinda…like Paris. And it’s one of the top twenty restaurants in the world. I’ve been Skyping with them and they offered me a twelve-month probationary apprenticeship. I leave for France in two weeks.”
Mum and Dad both look at each other. Mum’s mouth opens many times, but she never says anything. Dad stares at me. At first he looks angry. But then his features change, his shoulders pull back and he smiles at me.
“We will miss you,” Mum finally manages to say before Dad speaks.
Dad focuses on the table as he grins with joy and happiness. After a long moment, he takes in a huge breath and looks at me, “I thought you were going to tell me you and Salvatore are engaged. Phew, I am happy that is not it. Not that I would mind, in a few years, but I think you are way too young.”
I look at Mum and now it’s her turn to look sheepish and concerned.
“Well Dad, there’s one more thing.”
The End
“Pierre,” Holly says as we lay in bed together. Today’s been an emotional day. We took Emma to the airport and sent her off to study the culinary arts under one of the most exclusive and most talented chefs in the world. Her engagement to Salvatore shouldn’t have been a shock, but it did render me speechless. But I am extremely happy he went with her, because I know he loves her and will take care of her.
“Oui, mon chéri,” I answer Holly as I spoon her gloriously naked body in my arms and kiss down her spine.
“I have an appointment tomorrow with my gynaecologist,” she says softly as she moves her cute, full derrière into my groin.
“I hate that you are going through menopause, but I love all the sex we are having.” I flip her to her back, and hover over her enticing body. Holly’s legs open, and embrace my hips as I slip into her wet and warm pussy.
“Yeah, about that,” she moans as she arches her body into my chest and her nails dig deeply into my back.
“It is alright. I still love you, even with your crazy mood swings.”
“Good, because I’m not going through menopause.”
My body automatically stills, “What?” I ask, my frame trembling with worry.
Her eyes are filled with tears, and she’s smiling as she attempts to close any distance between our bodies. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“Then what is it?”
“You’ll have to wait for eight months to find out.”
Dear Jane
Dear Jane,
Thank you. I appreciate the feedback you’ve so kindly given me in reference to the ARC (advanced reader copy) of my new book, Smoke and Mirrors.
I particularly love how you said that you would rather burn your eyes out with Tabasco sauce than read another book by me. One of my favorite parts of your comment was, “This writer clearly lacks the talent to evoke emotion or create an interesting story line. I’d love to see all her work ripped from publication and burnt. Please, Ms. McHeyzer, if you have to write, choose your (hopefully unpublished) journal. And then once you’re finished with it, take it out the back yard and shit all over it, because you’re clearly incapable of stringing together a comprehensible sentence.”
Thank you for those lovely words. They will help me grow as a writer and will inform my development in my chosen field of work. Although saying things like, “If I could, I’d take a gun and shoot the writer between the eyes,” is a bit harsh, even from someone like you.
Since you seemed to take pleasure in ripping me down and insulting me so publicly, I thought I’d respond to you in the same courteous manner and tell you my story.
Eighteen months ago my husband became terribly ill. After many tests, the doctors found he had stage two lung cancer. Because of that diagnosis he fell into a deep depression, finding it difficult to get up in the morning, even neglecting his own health and appearance.
There are days he can barely get out of bed to go to work, and although the company he works for has been incredibly supportive of him during his illness, there will come a time when they’ll have to do what’s best for their business and let him go. As it is, all his vacation time has been depleted, and when he doesn’t go to work, his pay gets docked. Our saving grace (at this stage) is that they allow him to come in and work when he can.
Our four-year-old daughter was diagnosed with autism when she was two years old. I’ve had do to whatever I can to help her, which meant changing everything from our daily routines to her food, and balancing her needs against my husband’s, all to give her as normal a life as possible.
Four months ago, on the way to a pediatrician’s appointment for our daughter, I was T-boned by a drunk driver. Thankfully, neither my daughter nor I suffered anything major. I broke my arm and my daughter had whiplash. The insurance company for the driver of the other car
refused to pay for our damages because he was well above the legal limit for drunken driving, and therefore, had committed a crime. His insurance policy included a waiver that the company was held harmless if their insured’s vehicle was used for the commission of a crime. And guess what? With all our medical expenses, I had to choose which to pay. Our car insurance (and the deductible for our car’s repair) or my child’s and husband’s medicines? You can guess which I opted for.
So now, we have no car in addition to everything else that has happened. That makes doing anything very difficult, because my daughter has a phobia about public transportation.
In addition to all of this, we’re three months behind on our mortgage. We’ve gotten our final disconnect warnings on our utilities and I’m pretty sure our foreclosure notice is already in the mail.
And to add to everything else, I’ve been diagnosed with high blood pressure and need to take medication (which I can’t afford) in order to bring it down to avoid a stroke or a heart attack, because if I die, I’d leave both my husband and my daughter on their own.
“Family?” I hear you ask. Easy…I don’t have any.
Don’t get me wrong. I have a mother and a father, though I have nothing to do with them. My father sexually assaulted me when I turned twelve, telling me “it’s my job to teach you how to fuck.” When I told Mom what Dad had done, she dismissed it and said that Dad wouldn’t do anything like that. One day, she came home from work early and found me tied naked to their bed while my father was doing things he shouldn’t. She screamed at me and told me that I was a “slut who was asking for it.”
I’m sure you can see why I ran and never went back again.
My husband’s family helps when they can, but they’re far from wealthy. They take our daughter when she allows it, but her autism makes her skittish with others and she prefers to stay with me.
I work at the local grocery store as a cashier when my husband has good days and can care for our daughter. I’m blessed and fortunate that my boss is the most kindhearted and caring man that God could have given me as a supervisor.
Even though he’s not family, he’s helped us out so much. He accommodates me whenever he can. Everyone at the supermarket has been truly compassionate.
One of the young girls (this is her first “real” job) bought me a bag of groceries in her second week at work, because she said, “It’s my job as a human to help another out when they just need a break.” What sixteen-year-old does things like that? I held it together when she gave it to me, but broke down and sobbed as I cooked with the ingredients.
I try and write, and sell what I can to make just enough money to hopefully cover the cost of a couple more medications for my husband and daughter.
I only hope that I’ll never have to come to a point where I’ll have to choose who needs their medication more.
Now I come back to you. I had no intentions of airing my dirty laundry on social media, because frankly, it’s none of your damn business (or anybody else’s).
But you chose to make your public comment extremely personal, insulting, and vicious. So I wanted to tell you why I choose to write.
I truly hope that you got what you wanted from of your comment. I expect that it made you feel important for a moment, superior, and I hope you felt that was satisfying.
Me? Well, I think you’re nasty. But hey, your opinion of me means nothing, because I don’t have the time to worry about you and besides, it’s not my business what you think of me.
I can just imagine how proud your parents would be to know they’ve raised a daughter like you, someone who delights in ripping people apart with little, if any, conscience regarding the words they use to attack, feeling safe to do so in the relative anonymity of the Internet.
Have you ever heard the term “cyber bully”? I think your picture should illustrate the definition.
Now that I’ve had my say, I’ll bet you can’t even be bothered to read it. And if you do, you probably won’t give a shit.
And that’s okay, because let’s face it – you’re by nature self-absorbed, narrow-minded, judgmental, and deliberately cruel.
I’m glad that I don’t know you because really, you’re not anyone I’d want to hang out with. I prefer my friends to have integrity, compassion, and positivity.
Again, thank you for your comments. I hope my response finds you.
Kind regards,
Margaret.
PS: Now tell the world I can’t spin a good tale!
A Woman Torn
Eleanore was petrified.
The masked attacker held a knife to her husband’s throat and told her to say her goodbyes. Fat tears streamed down her face. She didn’t know what to do to keep that knife from slicing across Lawrence’s throat.
“No,” Eleanore cried. “Please! You don’t need to kill an innocent man. We were only out on our first date. I’ll come with you willingly.” If she could convince the masked man that his captive was only a casual acquaintance, perhaps he’d let him go. Eleanore tried to sound convincing, though the tears made it difficult for her to speak with belief.
The masked man already knew she was going to go with him, because he’d planned it that way. He didn’t want to hurt her husband, but Lawrence was in the wrong place at the wrong time. And he knew Eleanore was lying. The man against whose throat he held a shiny hunter’s knife was indeed, her husband.
“I don’t believe you,” said the masked man and lightly ran the knife across her husband’s neck. Just enough to allow a trickle of blood to escape past the neat line.
“NO!” she screamed louder. Her shoulders slumped and she lowered her gaze to the floor.
Lawrence had been bound and gagged by the masked man. Only able to use his eyes, he tried to convey to Eleanore that everything was going to be alright, that he’d find a way to save them both. But even he could admit that with his arms bound from wrist to elbow, his legs bound from knee to ankle, it was looking fairly desperate. He tried to shake his head, though the masked man had a tight hold of his hair so he really couldn’t move.
“I’ll come with you. Only please, let him go.” Eleanore stood awkwardly from her kneeling position. Her arms were bound behind her back, but her legs were free.
The masked man looked up and down at her figure. The thigh-high dress she was wearing was torn, her make-up was smudged and her hair was a mess.
My God, she’s beautiful, thought the masked man.
“Please,” she whimpered in a last-ditch effort to try and convince him to leave Lawrence alone.
Standing behind her kneeling, bound husband, the masked man’s body was becoming aroused. She was begging; the husband was incapacitated. He held all the power. Just the way he liked it.
Power. The funny thing about power…once you got a taste of it, you craved more, whether it was power from money, drugs, or power over another person.
Eleanore’s submission at this moment, with her eyes lowered, and sniffing back those tears… yep, it made him even harder.
“All right, sweetheart. I’ll grant your wish. But try to screw with me and I’ll come back and kill your entire family, including your three children.”
Her shoulders tensed. Eleanore realized this wasn’t random. The masked man knew her. Did that mean she knew the masked man? She hadn’t recognized his voice or his build. Who the hell was he?
The masked man hit the back of Lawrence’s head with the hilt of his knife. Her husband collapsed to the ground in front of her, falling without grace or ease. When he woke, his head would be throbbing, and his face would surely be bruised.
The man in control strolled over to the bound woman. Eleanore’s tears fell in big, plump streaks down her face. God – she’s so beautiful, but why is she like this? he thought.
He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her out of the building into the night, to stumble toward his waiting car.
She blinked through her tears, trying to commit everything to memory, because if she got a cha
nce she was going to take it and run.
She saw tall buildings surrounding the one they exited. Trash littered the alley; graffiti adorned the naked bricks. An odor permeated the dark, one that smelled of urine and rotted meat.
Where the hell am I? Eleanore thought as she tried to get her bearings.
The man kept tugging her toward his car, just ahead.
She could scream, but from looks of the place, no one would hear, and if they did, they wouldn’t pay attention.
Her head snapped to the left. Something caught her peripheral vision, maybe someone in a position to help her. She slowed and opened her mouth to scream, but saw it was a matted gray cat scurrying along, most likely looking for food amidst the garbage.
It was useless.
Eleanore understood that the moment she was in his car, she could end up anywhere.
Everything she ever heard about not allowing yourself to be dragged into a kidnapper’s car barreled back through her mind. She started fighting, struggling with the man dragging her. Although he easily overpowered her, it didn’t stop her from trying.
Until…
He whispered one word in Eleanore’s ear that sent a freezing chill straight through her blood, icing her veins completely, killing all her spunk and resistance.
“Simone,” he murmured. It was her youngest daughter’s name.
At that moment, she stopped fighting and resolved to comply with whatever he wanted from her.
Eleanore willingly went with him to his car. She willingly climbed into the trunk. And she willingly resigned herself to becoming his next victim.
The moment the man started the car, he let out a huge sigh of relief.
That was easier than I thought.
He drove her to the house he had prepared for her. When he opened the trunk, Eleanore was lying on her side with tears streaming down her face.
“Out,” he commanded.
She tried to get up, but it was impossible with her hands bound behind her. Her body was weak, and she was totally spent. Her mind had switched off and she simply didn’t have the strength.
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