by Elaine May
“This room is beautiful. Is it mine?” I don’t know how else to ask, there’s no way I’m sleeping with him when he’s acting like this, but he only laughs in response.
“What’s so funny?” I ask, not liking where this could be going.
“This will be our room, princess.” I take a few steps backwards, hitting the wall.
“I’m not sleeping with you.” Not when he’s like this anyway. I try to put as much conviction as I can in my words and he just laughs once again at me.
“I think you will because you already have so what’s the point in denying each other now? Stop going hot and cold on me. Stop pretending this isn’t happening, little princess. We’re going to be getting married.”
What? He runs a lone finger down my cheek and then down the side of my face, cupping my chin when he reaches it before letting me go and turning around and leaving me.
I can’t deny that the home Charlton has chosen for us is beautiful, but I can’t allow myself to enjoy it, if anything all this place represents is my new prison. I may not be surrounded by the cold air and metal cells, but I am in a prison nonetheless. I watch as Charlton comes back with a few of my boxes and leaves them on the carpet to go back and get more. Back and forth to the car he goes, bringing more of my boxes up. Sammy starts to get interested in what he’s doing and comes to have a look. I can see Charlton getting more and more annoyed with the amount of my boxes and then with Sammy getting in his way, but I don’t want to help him.
He can do it all on his own but he’s sulking. He’s mad and I feel really bad but then he is being really mean about Sammy so no I don’t. As he works through bringing the boxes up I start to unpack, might as well get myself settled if this is going to be my home. I start putting all my lady products in the en suite. Moving his stuff aside to make room for my things. I put my contact lens bottle and solution by the sink, my brush goes to the left of them and then I make sure to put my makeup bag out where I can get to it easily every morning. I walk back through into the bedroom and notice the walk-in wardrobe again, it’s massive but I make sure I push all his clothes as far back as they go so all my clothes have plenty of room. This is what happens when you have a wife so he might as well get used to it. I hear him slam the front door and then him climbing up the stairs, each foot landing on a step with more force and I wonder what he’ll think when he sees what else I have done. He goes into the bathroom and he’s in there a few minutes before I hear the flush, but he stays in there. He’s in there for a bit longer and then I hear it.
“Oh God.” I just barely hear him amongst his mumbling.
“It’s starting already. She’s going to take over the flat as well as my life.”
I can hear him slam a door and then him opening another door, hoping he’s going to see what else I have found a home for around his own things.
“Oh God, not this stuff!” This stuff? He actually shouts this time and as he slams another door I can feel the wall vibrate with his frustration. He has forced all this on me, what else does he expect? What was he expecting?
“Everything alright, dear?” He opens the door and just looks at me, regarding me and thinking of his next step.
“You’re making yourself welcome already then I see?” I shrug my shoulders.
“Of course I am. This is my home too now.” Take that, Mr Williams.
“You did say that, didn’t you Charlton?”
He doesn’t say anything, he just releases a big breath as he watches me for a bit longer before he starts to walk around me and to the opposite side of the room where he opens a drawer and gets something out. I can’t quite tell what it is, he just looks at it for a moment, but then he turns to face me, and I can see a small navy box in his hand before he just throws it at me.
“You best put that on then before you go out?” I catch it and am startled by the beauty that peers up as I open it. The ring is beautiful and old. It looks like a family heirloom.
“What’s this?”
“It was my grandmother’s engagement ring. It belonged to my grandfather’s grandmother before that so it’s been in the family for generations.”
I take a look at it again and it’s stunning. The diamond itself is massive, surrounded by yellow gold claws and the gold band is scratched and tarnished but to think it’s been on two other Williams wives is something special and Charlton just threw it at me.
My engagement ring?
Did I expect him to get down on one knee?
Yes, I guess I did, but the bastard couldn’t even give me the decency of proposing properly. He just threw it at me.
“Aren’t you going to ask me properly? You don’t have to get down on one knee, but at least ask me.”
“What’s the point? We’re getting married, the whole thing was decided for us a long time ago.” He doesn’t even look apologetic as his lips say the words.
“I can’t be doing with this right now. With you. I’m going out.” With that he turns to leave.
“What, you’re going to leave me here?”
“Yeah. I need some air.” And with that he leaves me and I justwant to burst into tears. He’s been so nice recentlyand now he’s spun a one-eighty on me and turned into a pig. How am I supposed to live like this? How am I supposed to live with him for the rest of my life?
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
Whoever said time is a great healer is a big fat liar.
I am all alone except for the small amount of time Louisa is able to come to me.
So much hurt lives in my heart and it just wants to combust all around me but through it all I am still able to carry on with my schooling.
I am an A star student.
I am someone to pick on and I just want to scream and shout.
I want to unleash everything on to them
I don’t hear from him for the rest of the day and if it weren’t for Sammy I would feel so lonely as I try to make sense of my new home.
It is beautiful but how can this ever be my home?
For the first time since I saw him again I feel like he really doesn’t want to have me here.
I don’t want to be here either. I take my phone out and decide to listen to some music as I go through the rest of my things, Sammy comes by and lies down near the archway so he can keep an eye on me.By the time everything that I want is where I want it in the wardrobe I decide to take a shower and try to wash the day off me. It’s been one of those days and I don’t know what to think about it. I walk through to the bathroom and start running the shower as I undress, leaving my clothes on the floor. I walk into the shower, the hot steams engulfs me, trying to calm my aching muscles and soul. My soul aches with everything I am being forced to think about, things I never thought I would have to. The water massages down my skin and I just stand under the spray, trying to take a breather.
I can tell straight away when he comes for me, the cold breeze of the bathroom wanting to greet me as the hairs on my arms stand to attention. I can smell the scent of his aftershave and the mixture of beer on his breath as it tickles my skin. His erection makes itself known against my lower back.
“You’re going to be my wife. There’s no point either of us trying to deny it.” His eyes find mine as he puts his hands on my shoulders and turns me. I can see from within the depth of hazel that he wants this, after everything I have done. He may have told me so, they could have just been lies, but the truth in his eyes rings with all the truth in his heart. I take a chance to take a look at him, water travelling down the valley of all his muscles that I want to touch. He’s so handsome, he’s like a bar of dairy milk that you know you shouldn’t eat but don’t want to deny yourself because you know how good it will be. I already know how good he is but I don’t want to think about all the things he can do to me, all the changes he has already done.
“What are you doing?” I whisper but he just pushes me against the cold tiles of the wall.
“You’re mine, Noelle. All mine.” His mouth claims mine, his f
ingers touch all over my body, leaving tingles in their wake and I want more. He pushes me further into the wall and I let him, willingly wanting to see what he might do to me. My tummy becomes a fluttering mess of need as he keeps pushing me against the cold tiles of the shower, the steam and his body the only thing keeping me warm now. His warm lips sweep across mine in a gentle caress and no matter how much a part of me is screaming to try and deny myself this moment with him, I just want it, nothing is going to make me stop. I want this more than I could ever havepredicted. His hand makes a slow path to my thighs, grabbing hold of them as he lifts me off the ground and I wrap my legs around his waist. His proximity is deafening. His fingers are straight at home at my core, playing with my lips and tugging and flicking at my clit. His cock nudges at my entrance, just waiting to rip through me. I moan as my fingers take a tight grip of his shoulders.
His mouth becomes rougher, pulling and biting my bottom lip as the warm water cascades down us both. He pulls away from my lips to use his long tongue to lick away the water, he looks deep into my eyes, the intensity in his hazel orbs threatening to smother me whole.
“You’re mine, Noelle.” He gives my bottom lip another pull the head of his cock brushing lightly over my sensitive nub.
“All mine.” He says as he rams himself all the way inside me to the hilt, his balls banging against my bum in the process.
“Don’t you forget either,princess.” He thrusts again even harder and he swallows my moans with another kiss as he bulldozes through my inner muscles with no mercy. I whimper as he stretches every inch of me.
“No matter what you do, we will be getting married.” I can, he’s just begging me to say something, but I can’t think of the right words.
Maybe he’s right. I’ve been working so hard to get him to cancel and nothing has worked. He changes direction inside me and my tummy muscles start clenching tight, spiralling around and around, ready for a release so intense it will shatter me. He continues to thrust in to me as sparks take flight all around, me as my world convulses around me, every limb shakes as he holds me tight, not wanting to let me go. He is claiming every part of me as he starts to run through my veins like a poison. I don’t know when it started to happen, but it seems that we are both consumed by the other. He may have been poisoning me, but I am doing the same thing back at him tenfold. It is all so confusing, and I don’t have a single idea how to break it all down and make sense of it all.
“You’re mine.” He whispers in my ear as he starts to pull away from me. He steps away from the shower and wraps a towel around his waist.
“We’re in this together. We should try and help each other not make this worse.” He says, a little louder this time and then he turns on his heel and walks out of the bathroom. I thought that was what we had started to do?
It may not have been my plan to begin with, but it has happened during the course of the last few weeks and I went with it. All of a sudden I feel bad for every bad thought I have had of him and this stupid situation we both find ourselves in.I move myself into the spray of water again, I can feel the water washing him away from my skin as I wash myself but I don’t want him gone.
What did he mean by that last statement?
Was he trying to tell me something, beg me to make this easier for him? He is the one who is making this harder. Not me.
I am so angry at him.
He was the one who just threw a ring at me and told me to put it on.
He was the one who left me when I was new to his home, like I was nothing and then came back and just took what he wanted from me.
That was not me, that was all him.
I can’t deny how much I liked it, why did I like it?
Because I like it every time he touches me.
He is making me feel things he has no right making me feel.
He knows the right way to touch me, he knows how to play me, and I know that if I don’t stop this now it will only get worse. I will go back to that girl again, but that girl is liking the way he can make her feel. He is able to make my body do things I had no clue it could do, he can send me to the moon and back with one flick, one push. If my original plan of making him call all this off is actually supposed to happen than I am going to have to start playing my own game again and up my role.
What will I do if that actually happens though?
My heart feels a new pain at the thought of not being able to see him again.
What the hell?
Arghhh. He is so annoying. Whatever is destined to happen there is no way I am willing to become the bad guy in our parents’ world. No, I want to come out like the victim and he the bad guy. He isn’t really a bad guy, he did some things in the past that hurt me, but that doesn’t make him a villain.
Oh my God Noelle, it does, he’s made you cry on far too many occasions and he has been far too happy about this arrangement for far too long.
He is really getting under my skin.
Once I am sure I havefinally washed him off my skin I get out and wrap the other towel around my body. It is fluffy and so soft as the material graces my skin. I dry myself and then get into my pyjamas and I am glad to say that Charlton isn’t in the bedroom. I don’t want to see him, I want to stay well clear of him as I try to think through all my thoughts, but time doesn’t do anything. All I want is to have some time with myself, in a bed with my kindle. I need to escape, I need a new world to delve into. I get between the soft sheets of Charlton’s bed and nestle myself against the pillows as I turn on my kindle. Sammy jumps up with me and the light shines and I try to remember where I left my latest book boyfriend. Book boyfriends are so much better than reality, you can picture in your own mind what they look like, how they sound and they all act like bad boy gentlemen. They are a win/win, they are every woman’s perfection. With my kindle in my left hand I can’t help but stop and look at the ring that sits on my finger. It feels as if it is already apart of me as any other item I choose to wear. I want to believe that it was been given to me out of love and not loyalty, but I know there is no truth to it. The way he gave it to me speaks volumes.
It is just a show, an act, and from now onI am going to have to shamelessly show if off whenever I am out and about. At some point I fall asleep still clutching my kindle, dreams of my dream boyfriend dancing through my tired mind.
“What the hell? Get off my bed.”
I awake with a start as I start to hear Sammy growling and when I open my eyes I see Charlton standing by the door, looking at the bed in disgust. He steps closer and suddenly Sammy is up, growling more.
“Get off my bed.” Sammy growls more as he nestles back at the side of me.
“Can you please tell him to get off my bed?”
“He’s always slept in my bed.” I say as I close my eyes and I try in vain to get back to sleep.
“Well it’s my bed.” I open my eyes again and look up at him.
“No, you said this was our room, our bed.”
“This is just great, I have a fucking dog controlling my life as well as you now.”
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me, princess.”
I put a hand on top of Sammy’s head as I start to whisper so Sammy can’t hear my next words.
“Fucking dog?” The words hurt as they leave my lips, Sammy has never just been a dog to me, he’s my best friend.
“That’s right, I said it.” He says as he nods his head.
“Fucking dog.Your fucking dog.” He stops and just watches Sammy with evil eyes and I feel so protective.
“I want him gone.” I raise my eyebrows at him.
“I want that dog out of my home and he’s definitely not going in my car again.”
“If he goes then I go.” Let’s see what he thinks about that, maybe this can all be ended by the end of the night. As those thoughts float through my brain something creeps up my spine wanting to cripple me with some type of grief.
“You can’t. We’re getting married.”
&
nbsp; “Wow,really, is that why I was made to move in here?”
“You haven’t been made to do anything.”
“Yes I have, and if I’m going to stay here then so is Sammy.” He looks at me questioningly and I roll my eyes, has he not learnt anything.
“My dog, Charlton.” He starts to run his fingers through his hair as he starts to pace throughthe room.
“This whole thing is already dictating my life.” A ray of hope, he’s not happy either.
“Then we tell everyone that we don’t want to do this. They can’t make us.” He stops in his tracks and looks back at me. I just can’t tell what he is thinking.
“Our parents are expecting us to do this. We’re doing it. I want us to do it.”
“What?” It takes a moment before his words register and he just looks like his heart is breaking as he looks at me.
“Look, I’m just going to sleep in the spare room, I can’t be doing with this now.” He turns to walk away and then stops again.
“Just so you know, my parents are going to issue a press release in the morning about our engagement. If someone approaches you can you be nice about it, please?” He sounds like he’s had enough with this whole thing, enough of me.
Why does that make me feel sad?
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
I have lost my mummy.
I am in year ten, in the middle of my GCSE’s
My best girlfriend, although she tries, is distant.
The boy I love, my Charlton, is long gone. Is he still my best friend?
Can I still call him my friend?
