The End

by Charlotte E Hart

  “But your cunt needs my mouth on it,” he whispers. “It still needs teaching its fucking manners.”

  And there he is again, reminding me of the man who wants to hurt me just for pleasure as his fingers grip into my waist. It’s nice in some ways to have him back. Soothing. It causes the shyness to seep back inside of me, his to disappear completely, making me okay with what’s happening around us again. It’s calming. The air between us on a level playing field again maybe. It makes me lean my head on his chest and look at the older couple who dance the same rhythm, imagining his beach at home, wondering if I’ll walk them forever or just for the next few weeks.

  I wish I had more answers than he’ll give to me, because this isn’t about my book anymore. Or the amphetamines that disappear more with every passing day. It’s my love story, isn’t it? It’s my Once Upon A Time. It’s a journey I’ve yet to see the end of, let alone understand if there is an end for. This man holding me, his breath filtering into my hair as he tempers his hold a little and lets me lean on him, is becoming the entirety of my life. He’s skin deep. Heart deep, no matter the way I try to keep my beating blood away from tales of love. He’s just there, here, his hands continuing to cajole me, his lips warming me, and his mind warping into mine, joining us. Keeping me strong. Keeping me quiet.

  ~

  The wind whips through the trees as I gaze at an old house, its perfected gardens covering the space around it. It’s a huge wooden place, the drifted boards neatly running the outlines, countering the solidity of the brick structure around them. It’s beautiful. A place I could imagine children running in and pets playing. A real family home. A rich family’s home at that.

  The entire area is the same. Houses sporadically positioned, highlighting the wealth in the area with their colossal size and grounds. I stare some more at the lavish homes, wondering which one he lived in with his family.

  “You grew up rich,” I say, wrapping my fur coat around me to keep the cool evening chill off my skin. He snorts, apparently disgusted with my question and carries on up the hill a little more.

  “Still am, if you choose to count monetary value as worth.”

  He pushes the gates open and walks in, instantly making my hand grab at him. What the hell’s he doing? We can’t just wander into someone else’s home.

  “We can’t go in, Blaine.”

  “Why not? It’s mine,” he says, glaring at my hand on his arm. I slowly pull it away, startled by his reaction to me touching him given the last few hours. “Mine and Cole’s anyway. It was my parent’s house.” Oh.

  “You still own it?”

  I don’t know why I said that. Perhaps it’s just the hope at conversation again, because that seems to have stopped ever since we got in the car to come here, as has touch, it seems. He doesn’t answer me as he keeps going, his fingers dragging through some tall flowers on the way up the drive. It makes me think of him when he was young, imagining him playing here with his brother, enjoying their life. It’s not something I can see at all. No images of him smiling or being free. No thoughts of happy families. No sense at all of him being hugged by his parents or given gold stars for good behaviour. It’s like, to me, that version was lost a long time ago, or perhaps he never had it to lose.

  I walk after him slowly, keeping my distance as I look at the surrounding grounds and wonder who keeps it all so neat.

  “How often do you come out here?” I ask, hoping that might spark conversation again. He looks at the house for a minute, tracing the lines of it and then begins ambling again.

  “I haven’t been here for years,” he eventually replies, still wandering and now smiling up at the windows. “I think Cole comes more often, stays on occasion when he fucks something of no importance. The town is full of meaningless encounters for him.”

  He seems melancholy after that, his body weaving through paths to get us around to the back. We end up in a large formal lawn, a stepped terrace down to a wishing well sitting in the middle of it, more flowers surrounding it. He just stares at it sadly, as if it holds some memory he won’t let me have. So I move in a little closer, hoping to get it from him, help him maybe.

  “I used to throw my money in here,” he murmurs as I reach him, “wishing for things to change.” I frown, wondering what that means. “Cole would spend all his. Girls he took out. Bikes. Computer games. All I did was keep throwing mine down there, wishing I could fuck like everyone else did. Wondering what was wrong with me.”

  I move in to put my hand on his arm, but he flinches, making me feel unwanted in his gloomy mood. So I back away again, leaving him to his musings and turn to look at the house instead. Whatever’s going on in his head, he’s not letting me into it for the time being. Perhaps it’s not my memory to have, and presumably emotion isn’t a thing he achieves well.

  I sigh and look up at the windows. 18 in total, three levels, all framing a huge set of doors that lead to this terrace in front of me. It really is grand, but in a homely way. It reeks of love and informal meetings. Warm fresh bread. Sunday morning brunches. Those back doors thrown wide, two small boys racing out of them and into the grounds as guests come round for drinks and the like.

  “Tell me about your mum and dad,” I say, trying to break this sadness that seems to have descended. “What did they do?”

  “Politicians. Mother was. Father was her marketing agent.” He snorts directly behind me, surprising me as he slides a hand around my waist and looks up at the house with me. “He made more money doing that than she did trying to feed the poor. Interesting perspective on wealth.”

  “You don’t sound like you like it much,” I reply, gently placing my hand on his, wanting nothing more than to connect us this way if he’ll let me in. This is what we need to move on from the rules he’s applied. I need this, as does he.

  “I don’t like people who use it to fund irrational behaviour and self-indulgent whims,” he mutters.

  He slides his hand away after that, his body moving away from me in the same instant. It makes me frown, bothered at the thought of all of his distance as I watch him go up to the back door. What was the point of showing me this if not to open up?

  He pockets his hands when he gets there and stares again, looking at the doorknob as if it’s the last thing he ever wants to touch. For the first time it makes me consider his upbringing, really consider it, trying to comprehend what made him the way he is. Did something happen to change him, something that maybe caused this sense of anger?

  “Is that why you chose Psychology as a profession?” I call, my arms still wrapped around me. “Did it help?” Still he doesn’t move as I try to find the right words. “I mean, did something happen with your parents? Did they screw you up?”

  He swings back towards me so sharply I falter backwards, his eyes coming at me as quick as his steps as he crosses the ground.

  “Don’t ever fucking speak ill of my parents,” he snarls. I stand my ground, raising my chin to meet him. Nothing frightens me about him, not anymore. I’ve been under those hands, dealt with them. And he would never hit me out of venom or frustration anyway, regardless of his needs. It’s not his style. “They were good people, Alana. They did nothing to me but show love.” The words break my heart for some reason, wondering if that’s the whole reason he’s so closed down on emotions. Perhaps a little boy lost just lost his sense of love when he needed it most. “I’m the damn failure here, not them.”

  I gaze at him as he glares, never once removing my eyes. If he wants to stare into someone’s soul, know that he has that to fall on if he needs to, he can. He can gaze at me forever if he chooses that comfort. If he needs it. I just need some more words from him, something to make me believe it entirely rather than this paused attempt at momentum he keeps inflicting. The thought makes me smile as I keep looking back, tracing the contours of a face that’s softening with every second that passes. He needs me. He needs this version of me that hasn’t flinched as he came at me. I stood up to him, showed him
he doesn’t scare me. It makes him glance away eventually, his head turning back for the door, then coming back to me again. His fingers reach for my face, another thing I don’t flinch at nor move away from. He rubs the sides of it, a slight sigh coming from his mouth as he does.

  “It’s okay, Blaine. It’s fine. Be who you need to be.” He grinds his teeth for a minute, still twirling my hair, then turns for the door again and leaves me to follow.

  “You still think something happened to make me this way, don’t you?” he grumbles.

  “Yes.” There’s no point in lying. There’s no route forward with lies between us. I don’t want them. I don’t want lies, or deceit. It’s the only way I’ll survive the storm he is. I need all the information, all the fear, tantrums if he’ll give those to me, too, because without it what is this? What am I? That makes me just someone he can beat when he needs it. I’m more than that. I wouldn’t be at his family home if I was any less.

  “Think you can fix me, do you?”

  “Do you need fixing?” He chuckles at that, his fingers finding some keys and inching one into the door. “As far as I can tell, you’re perfectly fine the way you are.” He pushes the door wide and walks in. “Short of the asshole behaviour on occasion.” I might have mumbled that last bit.

  “I told you I was,” he says, dumping the keys on the small mahogany table as I walk through a large informal lounge. It’s as perfect as the outside, making me gaze around at it. Cushions neatly placed, presenting themselves against the opulent furniture and fabrics. Wallpaper adorning lavish decorative walls, the doors covered in mouldings and gilt edges. They really were wealthy.

  “Do you want a drink?” he calls.

  I turn to find him gone, the echo of his voice resonating against the interior.

  “Yes. Brandy, please.” I think I’ll need one for whatever’s coming.

  I chuckle to myself as I wander out, looking around the hall and then turning my head to stare up at the landing. It’s beautiful, all of it. As if it’s been created with care and attention to detail, showing that loving family home the outside suggests.

  I end up slipping my coat off as I walk to wherever the sound of him is coming from, occasionally tinkering with a photo here and there. They’re all of people I don’t know, none of them resembling Blaine. But then I reach one of a couple and recognise it immediately. It’s the same one Bree showed me when she searched for Blaine. Archibald Jacobs, his hand wrapped around what I presume must be Blaine’s mother.

  “This is your father?” I ask, picking it up and carrying on along the hall. I study it as I go, trying to find a similarity between their faces, see some genes that unite Blaine with either of these two. There’s nothing that I can see, apart from the fact they’re both handsome men.

  He’s looking straight at me by the time I enter another room, the sound of clinking glasses leading me into it.

  “Why do want to know all this?” he asks, a sulky haze gazing back at me. It makes me frown at him. Because that’s what people do. They learn about each other, find things they can help with, guide even if need be.

  “Perhaps because you’ve had to ask that question, Blaine.” He takes a sip of his drink and points at another one he’s placed down by a sofa, the crinkle of his own brow mirroring mine. “You told me a while ago that I could only see you as my reflection for a while, that you would help me. I suppose I’m trying to do the same.”

  “I don’t need your help, Alana. That’s not what you’re here for.”

  “Why am I here then?”

  “What?”

  “How is this helping me?”

  “Dates.”

  “You haven’t brought me to your family home for a date. You’ve brought me here for some other reason. It’s something you need, not me. What is it?”

  He hovers, his face stone cold, a glower forming to annihilate the slight frown that was there, before downing the rest of his drink and storming from the room. Seems pushing and needling is, for some reason this time, causing him to back off rather than move forward.

  “Coward.” It’s mumbled from my lips, along with a few other expletives that shouldn’t follow as I stare into space and sip my drink. But fuck it. I’m tired, and still very much in need of my damn orgasm. I’ve done all this for him and he can’t open up? Idiot. We could be so much more than this façade of rehabilitation. I’m not even sure I need it anymore. Nothing shakes, not other than between my thighs, anyway. That still throbs with unknown depth, making me fidgety for finality. For him probably.

  I snort as the brandy sinks through me, perhaps slightly tipsily given the amount I’ve drunk this evening. Not that I care. I deserve a drink for dealing with his moods. And, God, I want to laugh with him. Really laugh. That’s what drinking should be for. I want to see him smiling and chuckling, showing me a part of him he keeps reserved from the world around him. I don’t even know why I want it. Most people would run a mile at such treatment, not me, it seems. I need him like he’s the other side of my coin, the sea that flows across my beach.

  “Why do you keep pushing?”

  I just tip my glass to my lips again and wait for whatever else comes from him. Perhaps I’ll get another spanking for disobedience. Frankly, I couldn’t care less. What is there to lose? In fact, now I’m imagining the thought, I’m quite turned on again as I take my next swig. He just huffs behind me, hovering in the doorway. Fuck him. I’ve not pushed anything until today. I’ve been obedient. Calm. I’ve taken everything he’s delivered and learnt from it, made it relevant to my story, to my life actually. I’ve changed, become something happier than I was in some ways, and all because of him. But this lack of honesty from him. This refusal to acknowledge the very thing that made me accept any of this in the first place, it’s fucking farcical. Annoying. Downright irritating to the skin he’s plundered. I’m here, waiting for him. Following him wherever he leads.

  “Oh, sit down for god’s sake. Talk, Blaine. It’s not hard.” I swirl my drink again, staring at the ice cubes and wondering if his heart lives in them. “You brought me here, what for?”

  “You’re a mouthy little brat,” he snaps, clearly infuriated with my tone. I turn my head over my shoulder to look at him, instantly remembering the feel of his hand on my arse because of his glare.

  “Yes I am. I was the day we met, and I will continue to be so, regardless of your,” I raise a brow at him, “…help.” Screw him. Beautiful bastard that he is. “Will me begging and calling you Daddy help?”

  “It’s stupidity to rile me,” he mumbles.

  “No, it’s just the only damn way I can get you to be fucking honest with me,” I spit out, suddenly pissed at the whole situation he refuses to move onward with.

  He looks as shocked as I feel given the venom attached to those words. But screw him. This is becoming intolerable. It’s hot and cold. Day and fucking night. Spankings one minute, my arse on display to a room full of sadists, and then a date and bringing me home to meet mother. Well, not quite, but the sentiment’s there.

  “Why Blaine, why won’t you just fucking say it again? You’re going to lose me.”

  He frowns and backs away a step, his feet showing me the damn distance he’s trying for again. Well, not this time. This time he’ll move forward, I’ll push him there if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll keep moving into him until there’s nothing but a slither of air, and then I’ll push in again.

  “Say it,” I snap out, the last of my drink slipping down my throat as I turn into the hallway and follow his backward steps. “Just damn well say it.”

  “No.” For once the word makes me smile, knowing it was coming as I walk another step and watch him retreat again.

  “Don’t know how to?” He snarls at me, his feet still continuing away. The glass tumbles from my hand, something like a blank haze taking over from the care I should offer myself. It swirls inside me, begging me to make him move forward rather than the backward steps he keeps taking.

  �
�Fuck you and your snarls. It’s all here, Blaine. You brought me here. Show me. Tell me.” He stalls his movement, his eyes boring into me like he’s ready to kill. Good, at least we’ll lay it all on the line that way. “You’re fucking terrified of me, aren’t you?”

  “No.” Liar. I don’t know how I know this, but I do now. It’s the only reason for these continued steps away from me. He loves me. Needs me. Is lost in his own conundrum of what he should do with me. Well, I’ll show him, teach him for a change. Make him show me.

  I keep going as he retreats up the hall, the shadows looming behind him as the sweep of the staircase comes into view and highlights dark corners at me. Perhaps it’s a fucking ascension to heaven from the confines. Perhaps it’s the view I need to get me out into those deeper waters of his.

  “You’re terrified of loving me and showing your heart, Blaine. Admit it.”

  “No.” Oh, he is. He’s petrified of me getting in for some reason. I know that look in his eyes when we fuck, and I know that slight hitch in his breath when I kiss him. This is all so much more than he wants to show.

  “You’re a liar, Blaine. A coward.” He growls at me, one hand held up as a warning. Of what? There’s nothing left he can do. No punishment. No other cruel intention he’s got to offer. I’ve taken them all. I’ve felt his wrath already, let it resonate on my skin, in my mind. I’ve taken it, thought about it, let it come out through my still fucking blackened fingertips and written it like it bleeds from me.

  “Stop,” he says, true anger levelled at me. I shake my head, my heels slowly moving again as I begin to unzip the back of my dress. One way or another we’re doing this. Right here. Right now. “Alana, don’t do this.” I smile, listening to the words and watching the way he looks behind him. He’s got nowhere left to back away to, has he? Nowhere to hide. “Don’t make me do this,” he snarls out, his head shaking slowly back and forth. I laugh as the dress slips from my shoulders, emboldened by this sense of power travelling through me. He made this happen, brought me to this point, and when I don’t overthink it, when I just concentrate on what we need, the forward momentum into him is easier than anything ever has been. No fear. No concerns. No worries about what he’ll do, how he’ll do it. He’s built me this way. He’s done it for whatever this reason is right here. Shown me how to not fear him. To trust him.