“Karen, if Demetri wanted you to deliver the package, he would have asked it of you. No?” They were all surprised by the soft menacing question, which came from a handsome man who seemingly appeared from nowhere.
“I was just trying to help the poor girl out. You know that he is not going to be happy with this one,” Karen said, placing just the right emphasis on the words to let Tanya know, in no uncertain terms, she was unwelcome in what starlet considered her turf.
Having dealt with years of pretty and petty people hiding behind insults and thinking she couldn’t see through them, Tanya ignored her. Following the buff man and guessing he could be nothing but security by his build, Tanya wondered what he thought of her as she let her eyes roam over him. It wasn’t that she thought someone who looked like a romance novel cover come to life would ever look at her except in pity or disgust. She wished that just once, she could wow a man, but she knew that was not the course of her life.
“Marcus is playing a dangerous game, sending you in Sabine’s place,” said the man in a deep voice. It pulsed through her like warm, silky chocolate. “My brother doesn’t like to be denied or played with.”
“Marcus said I was just here to deliver the envelope and wait for the reply. Sabine was held up, and he was more afraid of it looking like he wasn’t meeting his commitment than tainting you with my presence. Especially if Sabine followed her usual stuck-up routine and arrived even later than she promised. If that happened, the letter couldn’t get delivered by tomorrow as requested. I think we both already know that I just work the delivery side of Marcus’ business,” Tanya said, letting her slight annoyance at having to state the obvious peek through.
A booming laugh was the only response to her statement. Tanya was shocked as the man looked her over as though he was seeing a feast. Tanya couldn’t understand the change. Saying she wasn’t part of the escort side caused him to examine her as if she were. His early assumption that she was to be a sub-par replacement for Sabine, who was more plastic then human by now, in Tanya’s opinion, wasn’t as unsettling as his new examination of her was.
Looking down, she compared herself once again to the glorious Sabine and found herself so wanting that she just wanted to hand her delivery over to the smirking devil. Comforting herself, she thought,Who wants to nip and tuck themselves till you can’t even tell what’s real anymore?
Entering the elevator before the man, whose name was Damon, Tanya shuffled to the back, afraid of what her libido would do if she accidentally touched the walking Adonis. Well, more of a Vin Diesel with luxurious black hair tied in a drool-worthy ponytail, she corrected herself.
Always a sucker for a built body and long hair, Tanya’s libido made itself known in the most uncomfortable of ways. It was as if she were following one of her most-denied dreams, and it was sheer torture. She was happy to see that he stayed at the front of the elevator, giving her a glorious view of his tightly-encased glutes. The sight caused her mouth to water as if she were a starving woman seeing a ripe melon just out of her reach. Her ever-eager mind, supplying an idea of what taking a nice bite out of such a melon would feel and taste like, drummed up her heartbeat. The fantasy caused her blood to pound quickly to her skin, making it redden. Tanya quickly shifted her eyes up to stop ogling what she could never have.
While she had been lost in daydreams of nipping his ripe melon, he was wondering if her ample bosom, which was only hinted at by the large jacket, could be as ripe as it seemed. Her tied-back hair gave Damon a good view of her flawless features in the mirrored doors of the elevator. He hated that the bronze dimmed the shade of her green eyes to an almost dull hue, but he knew they were far more alluring—almost like the finest cut jade. Her hair was blessed with shades of copper, sable and every hue in between, making his hand itch to untangle her locks.
Her smooth skin was naturally sun-kissed, just enough to give an almost golden sheen to her classic soft features. She had high cheekbones, an adorable nose and a slightly jutted chin that hinted at stubbornness. Full lips framed a lush mouth. It all came together to make a face that would have made the great Ruben cry to paint. Damon could visualize her sitting, barely draped, in a wild setting; a calm siren in the ferociousness of nature, calling to the animal in men. He knew he and his brother could gladly answer what her eyes were silently begging for.
The knowing smile that caught her attention let Tanya know that her sly appreciation of Damon had been noticed. She braced herself for a deriding comment, only to be met with a wink, which stumped her. Wondering if the man in front of her was just that desperate, or an equal opportunity flirt, she almost wished she was brave enough to find out. Her own ministrations had lost any real satisfaction years ago.
As part of Marcus’ stable, even on the legal side, she could be excused from offering something outside her job description. At least until Marcus realized she was ruining his reputation for only having the finest available, and he cut her loose into the financial abyss she had barely kept out of these last few years.
She shook her head to clear away the unrelenting desire to give into what her body wanted. Tanya forced herself to again accept her lot in life. She grimaced and forced her libido to remember that she was only a lowly delivery girl. At least, that was her mantra during her lonely nights. She thought people like her were doomed to be alone forever; heck, there were even groups dedicated to it nowadays. So it wasn’t as if she were being singled out, at least.
Reality came crashing back as she looked down at her frumpy attire and the even frumpier body it hid. She thought that she was not the girl a man like that could actually want. The very air around him shouted he was used to the Sabines of this world, and Tanya fell far short of Sabine’s sculpted perfection.
Looking past the man who was playing such havoc with her view of life, she evaluated her body in hopes of finding something to give her hope. Starting at the top, her bosom was naturally impressive, but so was the rest of her—if “impressive” was the right word to use. She frowned at her reflection. It didn’t matter that her livelihood was dependent on her biking all over the city; she could never be the stick girl that men desired. With modern medicine failing to help her, she had turned to exercise, but that only sculpted her curves. It didn’t straighten them.
She was cursed to be of stocky build, and no amount of working out or surgery was going to change that. Standing 5’7” in her running shoes, she was never going to be the weak chick in the room. Embracing her perceived shortcomings, she had even taken up MMA fighting in her spare time. It was a must for a girl on her own to know how to defend herself in the city. The elevator stopped, and they got out. She reigned in her delirious imaginings.
Guys like the virile male Tanya followed down the corridor didn’t want a girl such as her. She believed that only those who could leech off her would ever want her, and as she had very little to leech, she was doomed to be alone. Shoring up the disgust she felt at letting her imagination get away from reality, she missed that they had stopped in front of one of the few doors on this floor.
The sound of a throat clearing broke her out of her depressing thoughts, and at just the right moment, too. One more second of reality and she wasn’t sure she would be able to stop herself from screaming her torment at being around his masculine goodness and not being allowed to touch it. Looking into a face that would make women wet just with the deep blue eyes alone, Tanya finally made herself listen to what the delectable mouth was saying.
“I think Marcus may have been right in his choice after all,” was the only comment the man made before opening the door to the opulent suite. “Welcome to the Bears’ Den.”
Continued in:
Courier
Sneak Peek: Until Death Do Us Part
Chapter One: House of Dolls
Patsy arrived after a long journey on ship from London. I was already in school. She was blonde and had a beautiful face with two rosy cheeks. She wore a lacy, peach-coloured dress which had little flowers
on it. A pair of white shoes and a sapphire stone necklace made completed the picture. Her eyes closed when she was put to sleep and opened when she was sat up. Her hands and legs moved when I wanted to move them. She was the last of the dolls I had in my collection, but all of the others were made in India. Patsy wore a stamp under her foot–Made in England.
After Patsy came, my life become full once again; combing Patsy’s hair, brushing the fringe, bathing her once a week, changing her clothes. Patsy wore delicate lacy panties as well and had her own toiletries; a brush, soap and a napkin, which served as a towel. She always wore socks and shoes, whether she was awake or asleep. She even had a milk bottle and she lived on nothing else, no food at all. But I would sometimes remember to share my chocolate with her. Otherwise, she remained miraculously the same weight. During the night, I would first put her to sleep on my bed and then I would sleep beside her, place my arms over her and go to sleep.
It was exactly in the same way my mashi, my maternal aunt, slept with me. She replaced herself in my life by sending me Patsy from London. She knew my weakness for dolls. She treated me like her doll; one you could play with or do anything with, but one which would never rebel or speak about what you did.
Her wish, nay, my innocent wish, came true as she bid a tearful goodbye to me in a yellow and black taxi that would drive her to the airport where she would embark for England. I stood, three feet high, by the taxi window and smiled in the knowledge that she would bring me my doll. Only when the taxi sped away did I begin to feel a hollow in the house; a deep, vacant space that grew bigger and bigger. When would she return? Days, and then months, passed until Patsy arrived. Slowly, the gap filled. I had found my doll, just as she had left hers behind.
My mashi and I were special to each other I knew, because we did something, no-one knew about.
The night is not so dark and quiet, but in my house, it is late. Perhaps only 9:30 p.m., but all are under their quilts in bed. I rarely sleep with my mother. I am told that she is unwell and needs to sleep alone. I sleep on the large bed with my mashi. We have a reason to do that as well. We are involved in a game we play together under the quilt–a game where I always pretend I am asleep. I am aware that we are treading in forbidden waters. And this is what that makes it all the more exciting.
My mashi takes my hands and places them on her breast, voluptuous, smooth and soft. Then she takes my hand and rubs it gently around her breast, around and around. I hear her breath getting shorter and shorter and then she lifts my face to hers and her breath envelopes my mind forever. Her lips suck at mine. It is a strange feeling, but I play dead. I pretend I am asleep, but really, I am fully awake with my eyes closed.
It happens every night; this, our secret game. In the morning, I forget what happened in the night, but only till it starts again.
Mine was a dollhouse. Lots of inmates fell all over me, but my mashi was very special to me, not only because of the games we played by night, but also because of what she meant to me during the day.
She was academically brilliant, tall, dusky, vivacious, bohemian, exciting and full of life. I remember, during her college days, she went off to Kolkata. Before she went, she would pick one poem from Rabindranath Tagore’s Sanchayeeta and ask me to memorize it by heart. She would want to hear it when she returned. I would spend a lot of time listening to the poem being read out to me, over and over again, till I could remember it completely. When she returned from Kolkata, I would proudly recite the poem without mistakes or prompting.
“That’s my doll!” That exclamation from her was all I wanted. She was so important to me.
For a long time, she and I lived all by ourselves in the house of dolls. There were dolls made out of saris with painted faces and there were dolls which were plastic. They had a house of their own, and they all stared out of it day and night, watching the goings-on of our house.
My dollhouse gave me unconditional acceptance, love and joy. It was a love so powerful that it taught me to be always surrendered to the force of love. It was a house that structured my mind, my thoughts and gave me reasons to believe that intellectual pursuits are the highest ones in life.
However, deep in the recesses of its high ideals laid unresolved issues which were shrouded in silence. Like my game with my mashi. Playing doll was a way of life.
I saw different forms of silences in that house–silence as a communication breakdown, silence as a powerful and loud language of communication without the use of the spoken words, silence as a weapon of violence, silence as a weapon of destruction. Above all, there was the silence of the dolls—the observers of all forms of treatment, whether that treatment came from love or from anger. They spoke nothing. They never hit back or failed to listen to me. They were like stones.
I spoke to my dolls always. They were my best friends, my alter egos. But I am not sure if I ever told them about what happened under the quilt every night. Like the inmates of the house of dolls, I too learned to put things away. “Under the quilt! Shove everything under the quilt!” The silences followed me through my life, except when I spoke to myself in the mirror.
“I held Patsy to my lips today,” I said to myself in the mirror. “She did not kiss me back.”
“Hush! Walls have ears and pillars have toes. They may go and tell someone,” replied my image back to me.
My lips were sealed ever since.
Shortly after that, I went to boarding school. Patsy accompanied me there as well.
At boarding school, I heard that our matron also did those things with a visitor who came in the night. I told Patsy, “See, it’s not only you and me who play doll. There are others, too.”
Patsy was silent. But the walls had heard it this time and the pillars carried tales to matron.
I was being watched. Nobody said anything till I told Patsy about how the music teacher was playing doll with the priest from the boy’s school.
This time, our secret became open discussion. Silence broke, and I was called aside to report what I had seen.
I remained silent. After all, I only spoke to Patsy about my secrets.
Continued in:
Until Death Do Us Part
Rubbed Raw (Triple Threat Book 2) Page 38
