by Elaine May
“Is that what you really think?”
“Yes.”
“Are you ready to end this yet?”
“What?” He stops for a moment and the only thing I can hear is his breathing.
“End this?” He questions as if the words are like poison to his tongue. “You’re not getting rid of me that easy.” He takes a deep breath.
“We need to talk about what’s going on here. This thing between us is getting silly now.”
“Excuse me?”
“I want to see you after I’m done with work. Tonight.”
“I’m sorry, I’m busy. Not everything revolves around you, you know.”
“Whatever. You’re meeting me whether you like it or not. Shall I meet you at my table in the restaurant?”
“Like I said, I’m busy, now get out of my office.” Cocky git.
“You know what, whether it’s tonight or another night we will be sorting this out.” He storms out of my office and slams my office door. I can feel the vibrations rock the walls around me.
After that I can’t seem to get on with my work but as soon as I get to a point where I can leave I do, with Sammy following me as happy as ever. He is never unhappy. I wish I could be more like him. I don’t know why I decide to do it, maybe I just need a little change of scenery, but I decide that we would leave the building through the shop floor. As always I get stares when people see Sammy but I just don’t care. When I reach the main door, though, panic starts to creep itsway up my spine as soon as I see the people lining the entrance of the shop with their cameras and microphones waiting for me. They are still here, waiting for me.. I don’t want to go out there and be forced to face all those reporters. I know as much as they do in this whole thing, how can I answer their questions? I look down at Sammy and he is so excited, his tail wagging as excited as it is, is a sure sign that he doesn’t care what is going on, he just wants the park. I can’t let him down again, I have been doing enough of that recently.
It is all Charlton’s fault. I just have to pull up my big-girl knickers and be the heiress I am. I start to step forward and as soon as they can see me the flashes of the bulbs start to blind me. It is so intense I have to try and shield my eyes as I step through the doors.
“Is it true you and Charlton Williams are together?” One asks, forcing their microphones in my face. I try to walk past them, making sure to keep a tight hold of Sammy’s lead, but it doesn’t do anything, there are too many of them.
“Are you dating?”
“How long have you been together?”
“Will Mr Williams take over your family store?”
“What does your father think?”
“Have you met his parents yet?”
“Are you going to get married?”
“Are you engaged?”
Question after question are fired at me from all directions, each one different from the last. I feel overwhelmed and I just want to shout that they are forcing us to get married.
The plans are already under way.
There appears to be no way of stopping it, no matter what I do.
I feel suffocated and no one is willing to help me. People start to tap my shoulder, grab my arms, just trying to be the one to get my attention but I am attempting to get Sammy to the park. Sammy starts to growl at my side and he must have found a gap because all of a sudden he is the one who is walking me as he leads me away from the chaos. Everything else becomes a blur. I can’t even tell you how we get to the park because I am still recovering from the shock until we are just there. I come to sit on a park bench, Sammy sitting by my feet, the colder air of the afternoon is a refreshing feeling overpowering me as I sit and take a look around. I get up and lead Sammy to the grass and I start to throw his ball, but he just stands looking up at me.
“Go on.” I try to encourage him, but he just carries on looking at me. I touch his head and just say
“Go on boy, it’s ok. I’m ok now, you saved me. Go get your ball.” As if that is all he needs he runs off and comes back with the ball. We keep going for at least half an hour, it may even be an hour. I am just happy that there is no one here to bother me,and Sammy in having fun.
“Are you ok?” My heart sinks but wants to jump for joy as soon as I hear that voice. I slowly turn around and there he is, still in his suit and still looking as sexy as hell. How does he do that all the time?
“Why are you here?” I turn around and look at Sammy running around with another dog, trying to sniff his butt, dogs are just lovely, aren’t they?
“I heard what happened. I wanted to make sure you were ok” For just a brief second it is as if the old Charlton is back, the one before puberty started to get in the way. He is back and he really does care. The last few hours race through my mind and I can’t keep my feelings at bay as the tears start falling down my cheeks. Today has been horrible, full of too many emotions and fear and I don’t want to pretend anymore that this is all ok. Uncontrollable sobs come out of my lips and Charlton comes over, engulfing me in a cuddle.
“It’s ok, Noelle.” He says as he engulfs me with his body.
I feel safe.
I feel warm.
I feel like I’m where I’m meant to be in Charlton’s arms. I calm down and before it starts to get dark Charlton takes us home and makes love to me and for the first time since I saw him again I feel like myself, I feel like I did that night when hope blossomed in my chest, before it all came crashing down around me.
****
He makes me feel safe.
He makes me feel warm and loved but I still need to do something. The old Charlton may have made an appearance, but history reminds me that he never stays for long. I just can’t think of what else to do. My senses are becoming scattered as the time flies by before me in a daze. Of course the newspapers have to report how I ran away from them, tears falling down my face and how Charlton was my prince running off to find me. I feel so humiliated, but Charlton never brings it up whenever we see each other. Every night we are forced together and every night all those feelings that I have tried to forget keep creeping up my spine to be known and remembered. Through my nerves and my heated cheeks, I try to play the part everyone expects from me as Charlton plays his part of devoted boyfriend. We are followed by cameras everywhere we go but we never say a word. Our wedding planner comes to see us at my flat almost every night so we can get the ball rolling as Charlton likes to call it. I cansee the signs that the stress is mounting on top of him, he sometimes snaps but then he tries to calm back down. The wedding planner wants to know when we want to get married and where, what ideas we have in mind, how many in our bridal parties, colour schemes, she wants everything from us. I don’t have a clue and neither does Charlton, we are blindsided by it all. Everyone involved is under strict instructions not to tell a soul. It is all out of control and through it all Charlton is a gentleman to me most of the time. We are both stressed, I am trying to regain the strength to fight, but he makes it so difficult and letting him have his way with me is easier. I feel wrung out with emotions, wrung out with the tiredness my body feels and it just seems so easy to just do it.
It is amazing, everytime he touchesme, he just seems to know the right way to do it.I don’t know how it happens but it is another day and I am due to go back to Charlton’s. Of course the cameras follow us and when we get inside his flat he looks at me as if he knows what is going to happen.
He is expecting sex.
I am supposed to be the good little wife and let him have his way. He comes towards me with purpose and I let him have his way. He leads me through to his bedroom and pushes me onto the bed and the next hour he stays between my legs getting his fill of me, kissing and licking every part of my skin, and I just feel used and as the anger travels through me I get a new lease of life.
I’m not going to be the good little wife any longer, I am still the same fighter.
He is asleep within moments of lying next to me and I tiptoe out of his bedroom and
down to the kitchen to get what I want. He is lightly snoring as I re-enter his bedroom and I walk through into his walk-in wardrobe to find his shirts. They are all hanging up on their own hangers in colour order. Light colours travelling through until you got to black, all of them seeming to be just right for Charlton. I pull a few of them off their hangers and walk back through to his bedroom. I laythe shirts on a chair and pick one up, the scissors in the other.
“C...Ch...Arl...Ton. I say nice and slowly.
“Charlton, it’s time to wake up.”
“Huhh?” He says around the haze of sleep.
“It’s time to wake up. You don’t want to miss this.” He raises his head and it starts to happen in slow motion as I use the scissors to tear through the fabric, allowing all the shards to fall to the floor.
“What the fuck?” He says, sitting up and rubbing his eyes as I go for the next shirt.
“That shirt’s Versace. Do you know how much it’s worth?" Yes I do, that’s the point. Bastard.
“What, this one?” I ask, as I hold it up and start to tear up the material.
“Yes, that one!” He shouts as I do the same thing to this shirt as I did to the other. He gets off the bed and starts to walk towards me and I walk backwards.
“Stop it, Noelle.”
“No.”
“Stop it, leave my shirts alone.”
“End this?” It just comes out, I feel somewhat relieved but dreading his answer as he stops dead in his tracks and just looks at me.
“Not this again.” He says and I can hear the exhaustion in his tone as his hands reach the top of his head. He suddenly looks like a lost little boy begging for help and I don’t know if I really want to force him to end it. As much as I hate this arrangement and he’s been a cocky sexual creature, he hasn’t been all that bad.
“No can do, little princess.”
“Why not?”
“Because we can’t, this is what we have to do.” And that is how he leaves it. He tries to be nice to me, fighting everything that I try to throw at him, and nothing works. As the weeks go by I’m feeling more and more suffocated and no one seems to care. No matter what I do to Charlton he just lets it happen, he doesn’t fight and that pisses me off even more.
I don’t know what to do.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
It is cancer.
After a two year fight my Mummy loses her battle.
I don’t know what to do with myself. How are you supposed to carry on living when someone you love so much, admire so much, is ripped away from you by an unforgiving and awful disease that takes everything away from them?
Daddy and I are forced to sit back helplessly as it destroys the woman we both love. Charlton hasgone, he has done his GCSE’s and is now at College, far away from me. Louisa tries to comfort me, but she is so popular she is always being drawn away by something everyone else around us deems more important.
I feel so alone.
Alone in my grief.
Before I know what’s happening we’re into a new year and it’s moving day.
I can’t believe I am about to do this, that he is stupid enough not to fall for all my tricks and this. We have both allowed this charade to keep going but as always with the man, a part of me wants to see what could happen. How it will pan out if I just go with the flow. I can’t believe we have already got to this point and I haven’t cracked him yet. I should have done more, tried harder, but something is stopping me from continuing my plan and he is stronger than I thought. It must be the sex, that is the only explanation,it is stopping me because it is amazing. Every single time he comes near me I melt into a puddle of need and I just do what he wants me too. He’s my puppet master, he controls the strings to my life. He’s doing exactly what he did when we were younger, making me fall for him all over again and I don’t seem to be able to control myself, just like then, but this time he doesn’t say mean things. Oh no, this time the bastard makes me crumble to my knees. I loved him then and I can’t go down that path again. I love the sex. The sex is amazing. I look over at all the boxes that grace my floor, why does it feel like I’m coming to the end of an era?
That a part of my life is ending?
It is, I guess, and something new is taking its place. I don’t know how I am going to cope with this. My phone chimes with the acknowledgment that Charlton is here and then five minutes later he’s walking through my flat and we start taking everything downstairs and to his car. It takes about half an hour and then before I know it Sammy and I are saying goodbye to the only home we have ever shared together. Our life together is packed away in about ten large boxes and I feel so sad. I manage to tempt Sammy into the back of Charlton’s car with a treat. When Charlton goes to disagree with my choice of treat I just give him a look and he backs off, holding his hands up in surrender. Don’t mess with my dog mister, I will hurt you. He goes to help me into the car, but I push him away, I don’t like this change, I don’t like the change in myself, but I watch as Charlton sulks around the car and gets in, taking a quick look at Sammy.
“He better not ruin my upholstery.” I turn to look at him and he looks so serious, how can he be so nasty about my baby?
“He won’t. You’re a good boy, aren’t you Sammy.” I say, touching his head and he gives a little bark before going back to his treat. I do notice the drool that’s starting to cover the seat. Ooops never mind, maybe that can be my payback for him not cracking yet.
We drive out of the city and about half an hour later we come up to a large gate that’s surrounded by trees. It looks protected and enclosed and safe. I watch as Charlton pushes a button and his window comes down and then that same long finger that I remember working wonders inside my pussy slowly pushes some numbers on a small screen. He looks so handsome as he concentrates, I love the way he turns to look at me.The gates start to openslowly and we’re greeted by lots of greenery. Charlton puts the car in first gear and then we are slowly driving up the road. I see a dozen small roads coming off the main road and going to a selection of beautiful family homes and in the distance is a big building that looks like a flat complex. The estate is beautiful and although it’s close to London it’s far enough away and secluded that you wouldn’t know it. It reminds me so much of where I grew up before Mummy died. A tear runs down my cheek just thinking of my mother, I wonder what she would think of all this?
She would probably like Charlton, just like my father. I’d be doomed either way I think. Just as Charlton drives us closer to the big building, I can see a little park off to the right where a bunch of children are playing, and I picture a little boy who looks just like Charlton and a little girl like me holding my hands as we walk to that park. It feels somewhat nice thinking of a future like that.
What am I thinking?
That would mean Charlton getting his own way.
“What do you think?” He asks as he drives through the archway and into the car park.
“It’s beautiful.” He parks the car and I watch silently as he gets out of the car, comes to open my door, and takes my hand.
“Welcome to your new home, princess.” We both take a couple of boxes and I take Sammy’s lead as he jumps out of the back seat as Charlton comes around to help.
“What’s your dog done to my car?” He actually points at the back seat that is now covered in black fur and white drool.
“Nothing.”
“Can you see that?” He says, pointing a couple more times in the direction of the drool before looking down at Sammy with disgust and then back at me.
“Oh, that. You only need a wipe and it will be fine.”
“A wipe? Do you know how much this car is worth?” I put the box on the floor and fold my hands in front of me.
“I can imagine it would feed a small country.” He rolls his eyes and then looks back at me. Looks like the Charlton that I had to deal with in secondary school is back again then. He does like to make appearances just as I start to fall for his charms, but I may have
just found his weakness.
His car.
“Please....P..Please just watch him in my new home.”
He begs me. His home?
I thought this was our home, how quickly things can change.
“I thought this was our home?” Take that, smartarse, as I put my hand on Sammy’s head who is just sitting waiting for us to get moving.
“It is, but I don’t want your dog destroying it.”
How dare he, who does he think he is?
“Pardon me? M...My dog?”
“You heard me, and I think I have a fair point.” The way he is looking at me is just begging for me to say something else.Well he’s in luck because you don’t just say something like that to a girl’s best friend and get away with it. The old Charlton really is back now then, lucky me.
“He’s yours now too you know. You’re his daddy.” That just did it, the look that graces his face is perfect. He’s shocked and cross and it’s great. Take that.
“Well that’s just great.” He looks away from me and then starts walking to the building. I pick up my box and follow him. When he gets to the door he types in another number and then I follow him through and into the lift. This place is beautiful. The main building is huge and covered in steel and glass, on our floor I can only see one door so I assume that there is only our flat. As he opens the door I’m greeted by a large open space with floor-to-ceiling windows with a beautiful lake in the distance. The walls are painted in a light beige and the furniture is all a dark brown that seems darker against the light. The kitchen that is off to the left side and covers half the length of the floor, with a big dining room table off to the side by the window, has counters of a dark drown tile. I see the sliding doors and the large balcony that has the same view. He takes me through into a large room and I can see the same view and balcony greeting me, a big king-sized bed dominates the middle of the room, covered in black and grey sheets and pillows. In front of the bed mounted up on the wall is a massive flat screen T.V, on the left there is an archway that leads into a large walk-in wardrobe with loads of hanging space, shelves and drawers. There is another door to the left of the archway that opens up into a beautiful bathroom that has double sinks and a walk-in shower with multiple showerheads and a bath that looks the size of a small pool with jets around the side. The tiles on the floor are grey, the walls grey and white, and fluffy black towels hang on a heating rail. I walk back out into the bedroom where Charlton is waiting for me.
