Authors: Isabell Lawless
No one sending anonymous packages or notes, no threatening emails, and she felt no need to constantly look over her shoulder as if someone's eyes were always watching her. Life was starting to become... quite great.
The paper store was located just on the outskirts of downtown in an old red brick building with large glass windows, and had a nice lush park next door where ducks always seemed to settle down to find a place to safely raise their little ducklings. There was enough shade and bushes to hide their little ones as well as a small pond to practice swimming. Smiling at the quiet scenery, she locked the door to her car and strolled blissfully inside the old warehouse for some serious bridal paper shopping. The best kind of shopping there was.
She didn't only love the park outside, but the paper store was fantastic in itself, and she always found it hard not to stay for at least an hour, picking color hues and paper thicknesses for any of her clients when needed. How anyone could even consider it a job, was plain astonishing to her. She could do this any time of the day, or night, as a hobby. She could live and breathe this store, this job.
An hour already passed by as she looked down on the watch on her wrist, and she laugh to herself as she knew that was probably the shortest time she'd ever been inside the place and at the same time been able to bring all the items in her shopping cart to the cashier. Smiling and laughing to herself she picked up her cell walking back out to her car and sent a text to the one who reminded her of what true love and weddings were all about.
“Remember when we got engaged and after a month or two you thought I was crazy already picking out napkins for the tables at the wedding reception, and bought bridal magazine after magazine to find the ONE dress that would blow me off my feet?”
“
Smiley.
Where are you? What brought this on? I remember your dress, what you looked like, and how it felt against my body when we danced our first dance together.”
“Are you flirting with me? And, I'm at the paper warehouse downtown to pick up papers for a bridal client's invitations. Hence my wedding thoughts.”
“Flirting with you? I guess I am. Who else should I be flirting with? And YOU started it.”
“Nobody else! You flirt only with me. Understood!”
“My babe is always so bossy. If I don't obey, will you punish me? Please.”
“Hey Mr. Drew... behave yourself.”
“It's very hard in your company.”
“Hard? To behave or are we talking about what's hiding in your pants?”
“Yessss, that was a good one.
Smiley.
And to answer your question. Both.”
“I'm afraid if I text you the words that are actually in my head right now, somehow I will lose my phone, someone will find it, and I will forever be embarrassed. Love you.”
“Oh, come on! My day has been long and tiring. Please let those words slip out. A little bit, please. What did you want to say?
Smiley
”
“Alright, who ever might be reading this after I lose my phone – I'm sorry, my husband is making me say this.
Smiley.
Your firmness is always very much appreciated. The harder the better. At any time. In my hand, my mouth... or inside elsewhere.”
“F*&%^*^! Thank you, now I will try to survive the last hours of work before heading home. With a big hard on. Don't worry about dinner, I'll pick something up on the way home. I'm hungry for something else. See you very soon. Don't wear underwear.”
“OMG, stop talking dirty. I'm trying to get to my car and I can't do that with my legs cramped together. Wet panties. See you soon. Love you.”
“Yum. Yum. Love you too.”
She opened the trunk with the help of her foot thanks to one of the new fantastic features used when you have your hands full and don't want to put anything down. She stored the large box of colored printing paper, envelopes, cartridges, and sharpies in the back of the car and admired her purchases with the touch of her hand. Like petting a soft puppy, she patted her box of paper, and happily ran her hand over the container holding different colored sharpies. Some might call her a lunatic, but there was just something special about stationary and colors. Why else would she dream about visiting the warehouse or spend hours touching thicknesses of papers and colored pencils?
Closing the door she stopped for a second and peeked out over the park. Not having anything else planned for the day she reached into the front seat of the car to drop off her purse and walked out on the grassy area watching the ducklings quacking about on their side of pond, asking mommy for swim classes and foot paddle instructions.
Days like these in the late month of August were just perfect. Kids were back in school leaving parks like these were much calmer, even allowing some park benches to gape empty, as if waiting for an adult to sit down, instead of jumpy feet dancing around on the wooden boards dedicated to bottoms in need of rest.
Slowly, she strolled over the grass and headed for the graveled path leading around the pond reaching the other side, where Japanese cherry trees still carried some flowers amidst the time of the year. Hands in her pockets she stood there for a second, stared up into the tree thinking each of those flowers would be perfect in color and delicacy for the wedding invitations she was making.
Plucking a few of the them from their branches she placed them softly into one of her open palms, smiled as a thank you to the tree for letting her keep some of its babies and show of their beauty to the new bride. Maybe they would even end up in the wedding ceremony, as an honor to nature itself?
Her watch showed almost four o'clock and it was about time to head home. The slumber of the warm afternoon came to a halt knowing traffic would pick up, bringing workers home from their jobs. Taking a last deep breath of late summer air, dusted in sweet cherry flower scent, she turned to head back for the car. With her head down, watching her fingers lightly pick on the flowers in her hand, she barely noticed bumping into a shoulder.
“Sorry!” She said without looking back and kept up her lazy stride back on the gravel of the path. Suddenly she noticed the person behind her had stopped as the footsteps could no longer be heard pressing down the gravel underneath the shoes. Many years of picking up small details, being on high alert most of the time, made her slow down, almost to a full stop.
“It doesn't seem that way.” The voice answered behind her back.
The man seemed to be standing closer than she anticipated, speaking with a voice sounding vaguely familiar. Without thinking she spun around on her heels in the gravel only to stand face to face with a thin man, just half a foot over her height, short hair, and glasses.
Even though his looks were a little different, there was no hesitation of his identity. Every muscle seemed struck with electricity and she started wobbling in her spot. The surge of adrenaline pumping into every vein and muscle told her to run. Run, Dani, run as fast as the wind. Far, far away, and never look back.
“Why bother?” He answered her thoughts, and used both his hands to grab her arms above her elbows before her body had the chance to ricochet in the other direction and take the first step away from hell.
“Yeah, I'm really here, to answer your question I can see in your eyes. Woman, your whole body is tense and hard, just fucking relax. You know me. If I wanted to hurt you I would've done it already. But, if you keep struggling I might just simply
do you
later.”
“Brian, let go! Andy knows I'm here, and the people inside the store probably saw me walking out to the park. If I yell for help I know they'll hear me and come running. Let me go, let go!”
Struggling backwards to free herself from his grip made her lose the flowers she had so delicately picked from the tree just minutes earlier, and as she followed their fall from her hand down through the air a sharp sting hit the side of her face, resembling a thousand needles swatting her left cheek.
His flat handed slap left her mouth hang open in surprise, and her over long bangs that were loosely pulled back with a hairpin fell over her forehead, covering half the view of Brian's stern face staring at her.
“Why can't you just ever do as you're told, woman?! You seriously have a problem with that. Is that just with me or are you fighting your sweet little Andy the same way? You need to learn how to listen to men. Is that why you're self employed so you don't have to have someone give you orders? Afraid that a boss of yours might end up being a man and you have to start to fucking listen and do what's expected from you?”
What could one answer to such a question? This was just completely idiotic and absurd.
“You shouldn't even be here?” She continued. “How... what... how... No!”
Pulling herself back from his firm grip only made the gravel roll under her shoes and she made no progress in the direction back to the parking spot and the freedom of her car.
“Oh, I've been behaving like a fucking prince, not hurting a fly in prison. And, when you show that you are so very sorry for what you did and even shed a tear or two, putting your emotional side on display, they somehow put you on a list of people who are no longer a serious threat to society.”
He tightened his grip around her arms and pulled her straight into his face, letting the skin of his nose touch hers. With a low voice suited for her ears only he mumbled.
“And when you know that you desperately need to get out of there, you do whatever you have to do to make sure you can start counting down the days until your release. I even worked with old people at a senior center, planting some fucking daises out in the courtyard of some city hall, and finally, finally I got the information that the prison was over crowded and I was on the list of being released.”
She closed her eyes and tried to pull back from his face, but his right hand grabbed both of hers, and his left went into her hair, digging his finger nails into her scalp holding her steady and still.
“I've fought long and hard to first find you after all these years, and then get back to you from prison, so now I think I deserve something in reward for my wonderful behavior. You need to leave Andy and come back to me. No more messing around. You know you belong with me. Your life would be so much easier. You'd never have to think about what to do, what to wear, what to eat, or what to say, I would make all those decisions for you. You could just relax and tag along on this ride we're on together.”
“You are out of your mind! The way you treated me before I left you was insane. The mental bullying always saying that I was never good enough for anyone else but you, that you had
to
tolerate
me and make me into something better, and that it was your life's destiny to fix me. Crazy! Those times you got me drunk to make me have absurd sex when you knew I would never have agreed to if I was sober. You pushed me around and yelled at me if you saw me dancing with another man somewhere, or even talked to another guy. Your jealousy was and still is just sick! Brian, you are fucking crazy!”
The air from her lungs pushing out the truth right in his face barely stood the chance to leave her body before another hard hand came slapping down on her cheek. And again. And again, until her head got too dizzy to even see what was up or down around her. All she knew and felt were his hands grabbing onto her upper arms once more, not letting her fall to the ground, all the while harder blows kept coming, biting into the skin burning on each side of her face. Tears welled up in her eyes and fell over her rosy cheeks.
“Oh, so after yelling at me trying to take care of you, you are the one crying?”
Another slap and then a warm and hard hand took hold of her chin making her look him straight in the face.
“I had so much planned for us tonight, but obviously you need more time to really think this through. You are absolutely wrong and must have misunderstood all of my previous attempts to romance you and my need to make sure you are safe with me. I only want to take care of you, the only right way you deserve. I'll let you think about this, and please make sure you make a rational decision this time. There have been too many years of waiting you out. So before I let you go...”
Instantly his mouth crashed onto to hers violently and his teeth dug down into her lower lip making her squeal against his breath and drag her arms away from his hold.
“I'll mark you, bitch, you're mine.”
With one last hard slap across her face he pushed her away from him, making her stumbled backwards onto her bottom on the grass next to the path. Before turning away from her, he simply looked down his nose, aiming his eyes in disgust at her pathetic body, shook his head and said.