Once Upon A

by Charlotte E Hart

  Nothing’s changed. I deserve nothing, certainly not happiness.

  Chapter 19

  Alana

  I wish I was sleeping well. I really wish I was, but I’m not. I’m up and pacing around my apartment at five am, not able to concentrate on anything, let alone write. I started the moment Tyler dropped me off, relaying as much logic into the words as I could fathom on a real laptop, but then Blaine started to creep into my bones, stopping my flow without any reason. It was all there, all coming so easily and drawing my story out to another level of brilliance and then, just nothing. It was as if the story just halted, maybe unfinished, or as if some part of it was yet to be mapped out. So I tried to sleep, thinking that maybe a night’s rest would clarify the story. It didn’t. I stirred and pitched, barely snatching minutes with my eyes truly closed. I showered instead and scrubbed at every orifice I own, my own fingers tracing holes only he’s touched lately as I tried to rinse him away. That didn’t work either. It only amplified the way his hands move, making me follow the same lines until I made myself come by just imagining him on me again. Sounds emanated in that cubicle, ones that came from my own mouth, the one I was trying to reoccupy as my own voice, as in, not belonging to him anymore. And even after that was finished, my feet stepping out of the shower so I could stare into the mirror at the wounds on my back, I still felt empty. It’s like my own orgasm wasn’t mine. It was lost, haunted because he wasn’t inside me. Perhaps if I wasn’t quite so concerned with why I wanted him inside me again it might help, but I am. It’s all I can think about, as if some part of me is missing and barely holding on to reality without him here. It’s horrendous, affecting areas within me I can’t even compute as real. It’s a loss, deep down, as if the very essence of me has been taken away leaving me lonely and vacant of life. It’s also the single most unhealthy feeling I’ve ever encountered, making me wish he was here and not knowing what to do with myself because he isn’t. I’m actually enraged by its hold on me, maddened that I suddenly can’t control my own thought process without some kind of guidance from him. And it’s not like he tells me what to do, well, maybe he does, but it’s as if my ability to make a decision is absent, just like my story. Do I want to go out, stay in? Walk, sit, stand? I’m not even sure if I know what I want to drink as I stare at the old typewriter, nibbling my inky fingers, let alone if I even want a drink.

  He was right, I suppose. Sending me home with Tyler has given me time to think. Although, it was the last thing I expected up there on that roof. He didn’t push me away. He didn’t create a space between us again. He just kept holding on to me, eventually pushing me against the rail to hold me still as he whispered things, dirty things. Deplorable things. Things that made my eyes widen and my crotch clamp closed. He just held me and talked, listing all the activities, for want of a better word, that he wanted to do, more than likely withholding countless other endeavours inside his mind. They were terms I’d never heard before, objects I’d never conceived as useable, and then there were blood and liquids. He mentioned them so many times, as if they were the embodiment of what he needed from a woman who lay beside him. And he said all these things as he kissed my check and let his breath flurry over my skin, reminding me of the peace associated with such acts. He said it as he forged his cock against my arse, levering it against me and softly groaning as he carried on elaborating on his desires. Crosses, whips, canes, cuffs. A bench, blades, shackles and rope. He whispered in such a way that my heart beat faster with his cadence, the roll of his words becoming like a litany of lust against my skin. And then, after his mouth stopped offering information, after he’d both aroused me and disgusted me, making me question everything my own mind was trying to regard as rational and love induced, he told me to go home and think, truly think about what I was proposing. I suppose it was his way of letting me go. His way of saying, ‘don’t come back unless you truly want this, all of this. All of me’. His way of releasing me back into the ordinary.

  I’d just stared out into the town as dusk turned to the black of night, feeling like the very ground beneath me wasn’t real. He made it feel that way with his hushed obscenities in my ear and his solid frame tugging me backwards against it. Blaine Jacobs, in those few minutes, made the abhorrent seem plausible. He made the vile seem enlightened, enjoyable even. He made me envision fingers delving and screams resounding, the lash of a whip connecting with flesh. Even the smell related to it lingered in my nose, regardless of his aftershave drenching me some clouded fog of lust. And he did it with nothing but his satin tone and his sense of ownership around me as he kept me still. He made the distasteful more believable than normality could ever be with just his words.

  “Never fuck like a coward again, Alana.”

  Those had been his parting words as the car pulled away, Tyler behind the steering wheel and me in the back. I’d watched him stare at us leaving as the large, modern complex faded into the background, his eyes narrowed and his mouth restrained, as his jaw clamped closed. For once he didn’t back away, but took steps after us, after me, his long legs clad in jeans as they moved and his jacket tossed over his shoulder. He looked so handsome, just like any other wealthy man. His dark hair tangled about in the wind, his clothes probably as expensive as money could buy, hanging in perfected falls on his frame, but we both knew better than to think he was just any other man. He stood there as a man quite alone in his irregular thoughts. A man who had just told me only a few of them, letting me into his unorthodox world and yet offering me a way out at the same time. The vision had made me smile, my hand resting on the window as if trying to reach him until he disappeared from view, the dust kicking up from the car the only thing left to see.

  Alone.

  And that’s how I feel now. Alone. My adored apartment feels empty. My writing seems devoid of compassion or empathy, perhaps even commitment to its plot now I don’t know where it is heading. It’s as if the place, the writing, even I need filling with music or laughter, or any emotion rather than this cavity that reverberates around the space. Perhaps that’s what I should do, just put some music on and let the sound lull me back to the words, hopefully forgetting his hold on me as it does. That’s what I need to do. Try to do this again without him. That’s what he sent me away for, isn’t it?

  It’s exactly what I do, regardless of the fact that it’s five am. I’ve put on a mix before I’ve thought any more about it. And now I’m dancing as I look out into the early morning sun that’s rising, considering just throwing my clothes on, grabbing my laptop and heading out to the nearest coffee shop, because this isn’t working. It doesn’t matter that the music’s loud, and it means nothing that I’ve chosen bright songs, hoping to lift my mood and flood myself with happiness. Nothing’s changing. I’m still standing with an unfulfilled sensation as I slow my erratic jig to a more relaxed sway, imagining his arms wrapped around me rather than the sense of freedom I was aiming for. Fuck.

  “Screw you.” It’s not a helpful proclamation. It’s a lie, and if he were here he’d be smirking at me as I try to denounce his effect on me, probably offering his hands at me as an enticement as he slowly drew his clothes over his head. Why do they do that? Showing their muscles and their ripples. It’s mesmerising. Hypnotic. It makes women stupid. It makes me stupid.

  I huff out to myself, quickly crossing the room and flicking off the music with tuts coming from my lips. I don’t know why I thought that would work. As if I could turn off Blaine Jacobs with some music. All it’s done is paint the atmosphere with yet more visions of fucking and fingers. It’s simply charged the air again, intensifying the sense that I’m alone, or more importantly, without him. It’s enough to rile me further, making me cross into my bedroom to get dressed and find a way to write this all down. I’ll go to the coffee shop on 42nd or maybe to the plaza and listen to the traffic. Maybe that’ll push it back inside my head so I can put some sense into it all. Make my story work again without it affecting me personally so much. In fact, I’ll call
Bree. I’ve been meaning to do that anyway. I sent a text on the way home telling her I was travelling back, so she knows I’m about. And it’s not like she’ll be sleeping anyway. She’s more than likely got a release going on, several probably.

  A few minutes later and I’m out the door, leather laptop bag in hand and my phone plastered to my ear as I catch up on messages and emails. Several from the publisher. The first telling me about all the changes that have been made to covers on the Fidelity series, why, I don’t know. They were perfect the way they were in my opinion, not that my opinion means anything to those people. Some of the others give me more meeting dates, probably so they can heap on more pressure for something I already haven’t got time to achieve, let alone have more added to. One from my lawyer, something about clause 17, article 4b being in renegotiations. Good, it’s about time they gave me some more leeway on who I have editing. And the last one asking why I haven’t checked in with edits on the two Valerie books I should have handed over by now, from the very editor I can’t stand. Well, screw her. I’m too invested in this new story to bother with that. And with the whole Barringer Fuckwit the Third thing going on, I couldn’t give a damn anyway. What are they going to do? Tell me it’s over? Unlikely. They make far too much money off my exhausted back for that. They took too much last year. I might have held an element of power at the negotiations, but it’s still too much in my opinion. The thought is irritating enough for me to delve into my bag and pop some happy pills, searching for the energy I’m going to need to make it through another day on little sleep. Honestly, those visions of walking and talking with Blaine seem more appealing by the minute. Holidays, beaches. Dipping my toes in that water that crashed against the beach at his house. Oh, that was lovely. It looked inviting, refreshing. He was different in those thoughts, his brow softer, his smile warmer. Shorts and a t-shirt, relaxed. A margarita in my hand as I lay on a towel, more than likely waiting for him to lift me up and toss me into the water. It makes me smile as I walk out onto the pavement, imagining him stripping off layers and showing me who he is, mind and body. Another huffs pouts through my lips as I turn and head for coffee shop, stabbing my phone as I do to end messages and phone Bree instead. I’m in love, aren’t I? Properly. With someone who was not for falling in love with. And it’s not like normal love, not that I really know what that feels like, but I’m sure it’s deeper than that, something more than just average. I’m head over heels for someone I hardly know, and why? Because he’s had himself inside me and shown me something? That’s just lust. It’s not that. It’s something else.

  “Sore?” is Bree’s opening gambit, as I hear furious clattering in the background. A snort leaves me, my head nodding irrespective of my answer.

  “Not at all.”

  “Liar.” Maybe, but if I can’t explain all this to myself, there’s no way in hell I’m going to be able to explain it to her. I’m in no way ready to discuss the merits of aggressive fucking, because let’s be honest, I’ve not even really entered the realms of BDSM yet. Well, apart from that strange sling I was put into to type, and the handcuffs, and being watched by others, which was stimulating in its own respect, but… “Whippy dick, or not?” Something dick. Beautiful, definitely, but whippy? Not yet.

  “Bree, please. Professional,” I reply, tugging my bag strap and looking through the traffic as I dodge it to cross the road, a smile plastered on my face at the thought of anything whippy.

  “Seriously? You’re not gonna give me all the deets?” No. “Because you can fuck off if you think I’m meeting with you so that you can sit in self-righteous smugness and not tell me all about Blaine’s whippy dick.” I smirk again, imagining the two of them meeting, maybe seeing Bree’s face as he walks into a room and blows her mind apart with his never ending filthy mouth.

  “Well, that’s up to you, but I’m going down to Bluties,” I say, still amused at the vision and dreaming up a scene in my mind. “I need to write somewhere that’ll drown me in noise.” Actually, thinking about it, the restaurant come coffee shop I met Blaine in originally would be good. It’s nearer for her and there are booths at the front there. We could tuck ourselves away and watch the world go by in the window. It makes me wonder if it’s open this early. “Do you know Carlucci’s on Livingston Avenue?”

  “Yep.”

  “Is it open for breakfasts?”

  “Think so.”

  “Okay, well I’m heading there then. You want to come?” I ask, sidestepping a mother and her pram and changing direction, my eyes focused on my new destination. It’s him again, isn’t it? Making me do things without thought. I roll my own eyes at myself, trying to ignore the twitching down below as I stride on. Maybe it’ll help, god only knows how, but something’s got to.

  “Okay. I’ll be an hour.”

  And as usual the phone goes dead, indicating that Bree is either too busy to continue the conversation any further than she deems necessary, or fifteen messages need answering as she continues working three WIP’s. It’s probably all of the above at the same time. She’ll be surrounded by her screens, having had about as much sleep as I have and desperately trying to make her life, if it could be called that, work. There’s no life in this anymore. It’s just a manic delivery of words, lobbed into the fold and then expertly teased until it leaves the reader gagging for more. I’ve been back in my world for only a short time and I can already feel my stress levels rising, winding me up into delivering more, achieving more. More words, more words. It’s like a chant in my mind as I keep walking on, suddenly desperate to get to my destination, as I think about all the words necessary. My word count has been sorely lacking the last few days, and not only on this story. I can be as pompous as I like about the Valerie books, but I do need to do them, as well as Peter’s. I have deadlines coming at me from all directions now I’m thinking about them again. None of which are being helped because of all the half ended stories backing up in my brain, as well as backed up on this laptop. I’ve at least three that need to be finished by the end of next month, ready for next spring. Those two that do need editing, regardless of my irritation with the fucking editor, and then there’s this one in my mind, the one that won’t bloody come anymore for reasons unknown. I’m running out of time, aren’t I? I don’t know what I’ve been doing taking a few days off for research purposes, if that’s what I can call them. Falling in love? Being swept off my feet, sort of. Well, not really. Oh God, whatever. I haven’t got time for it. Bree’s right. My life is in this laptop, not out chasing strange dreams of romance, no matter how lovely they might be.

  The thought halts my increasingly manic mind, as if Blaine’s chastising me, making me stare into morning traffic and remember the sound of fabric tearing instead, and his voice tempting me into the unknown. It’s a blind quiet. One just filled with him and his mouth again. A minute of calm. One that instantly nullifies the honking horns and engines revving as the garbage trucks start their daily jobs. I just keep walking towards the blue Carluccio’s sign I can see, hoping to push him from my mind again, but I can’t. It’s a constant in there now, isn’t it? He is. Nothing appears to be able to glide along without his voice commanding the thought, and the skies above me, the ones full of thunderclouds forming, are only asserting that sensation further into me. I feel like texting him and telling him to fuck off out of my head, or get back in it to full effect. I just want him to tell me how it’s going to be. Sending me home? Bastard. Perhaps sensible, but it’s not what I expected, or wanted, because all this other noise, the type that continues whenever he’s not around, is deafening me again. It was quieter when I was with him, more focused on just him and me. Noiseless.

  When I eventually head into the restaurant, I’m taken straight to exactly where I want to be sitting. The last booth on the left of the restaurant overlooks the road and through to the park beyond, the small offering of woodland a nice distraction from the grind of the daily commute. Yellow cabs pass by, the exhaust fumes beginning to be visible as traff
ic increases and slows the speed to barely a crawl. Frankly, it would be quicker for most of these people to walk wherever they are going. It makes me groan at the thought of more walking as I relax back and dig into my bag, wondering if it’s too early for a glass of wine to calm my frenzied thoughts. It’s not something I’ve ever done. Normally my pills get me by and keep the momentum going, but a large glass of red seems more than useful at the moment. What harm would it be? Frankly, I deserve one after the last few days anyway. It’s not everyone who goes under the hands of a sadist for research purposes. I stare around the restaurant, feeling slightly naughty for even thinking the thought, let alone asking the question of the rather hassled looking waiter who’s busy running orders around. It doesn’t stop me hailing him in the middle of his run back to the kitchen, though, and it doesn’t stop me ordering a large glass of Sancerre either. He looks slightly stunned, but nods nonetheless, returning with it quickly and then scampering off to carry on with his other duties.

  It leaves me staring at the glass next to my laptop as if fires up again, my tablet laid alongside it and my phone adjacent to that as wifi begins hooking me up to the Internet and SM again for the first time in a few days. I can already hear the ping of emails and notifications coming at me, the flash of messenger going off constantly and announcing the delivery of, no doubt, dick pics galore.

  I sigh, already feeling the anxiety flowing through my soul and reminding me of the endless efforts I’m made to endure. I just want to write what I want to write. Talk to who I want to talk to. Be like I was when it all started. I want to love it again, enjoying it for what it is rather than this sense of business that’s become all consuming and debilitating to creativity. And the longer I look at these machines endlessly beeping at me, the flurry of notifications increasing with every second passing, the more I want to close it all down and walk away. Less than twelve hours I’ve been back in my world and I’m already back to where I was before, albeit this time admitting it and realising there is something more to be sought after. It makes me reach for the wine, turn the sound off on all my technology and cross my legs to stare out into the road again as the rain starts to patter against it. Tired, so fucking tired. And the one story I want to write, the one that excites me, is not presently available, it appears. Blaine’s made that happen. I don’t know how, but he has. He’s not here with me and therefore nothing’s sparking my brain back into life. I should just shut all this off and get drunk. Perhaps then all this would change and transport me back to the young girl who dreamed of being an amazing writer. The one who made it with nothing more than late night ramblings as she tried to make her way through college, working Wattpad as if her life depended on it. She’s the one I need, not this grown up version who pays bills and apparently has everything she needs. I have nothing. I have an apartment and clothes, but that’s it. No life. Not even a sense of companionship other than Bree, and she’s so lost in her own world, just like me, that she’s barely present at all. I want whimsical again, like I was in college. I want love and creative flow. I want to dream and live, counting my blessings every day and remembering what life is for. Not this – my hand flicks at the machinery - whatever this is. Christ, we’re just multiple personalities, manically driving forward and neither engaging in nor dreaming of reality. Well, I wasn’t until Blaine Jacobs came along and tilted the world for me, proving its axis pretty fucking redundant without him controlling the spin of it.