“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Emily.” Eva placed an arm around Emily’s back and kissed her cheek. “A real pleasure.”
Eva couldn’t wipe the magnificent smile from her face, I could tell she was ecstatic at my revelation. She had never seen me with a woman before now. Even as a teenage boy, growing up under her roof I had never brought a single female home, never introduced her to anyone important in my life. Now, I was presenting her with my fiancée, no wonder she almost choked, I think she had always thought I was gay.
I felt some sort of accomplishment, some sort of triumph when I made my aunt proud. She had done a fantastic job bringing me up when my parents were taken - mother to a secure psychiatric unit and father to a high security prison. She had taken me into her home, and under her wing, without a second thought. She never had her own children but she treated me as I would imagine she would have treated her own. She gave me opportunities that I could never have even dreamed of. I had her to thank for my success in life, her and Uncle Richard - her ridiculously wealthy husband. It had been Richard who had insisted I attend drama school as soon as I moved in with them. I was so quiet, so introvert that he thought it’d help with my confidence and encourage some ‘normal behaviour’ as he had so kindly put it. And it had helped. Within a few months I felt like myself again and, in less than two years, I was spotted by a scout and landed my first movie role - I was a natural, apparently. Acting school was one place I felt at home. I didn’t have to dwell on the thoughts of what my life would become. I didn’t have time to miss my baby sister so terribly that I desperately wanted to curl into a ball all day and cry, yet even when I gave in to that need, the tears didn’t come. I had been numb. Frozen. But, acting brought me back to life again. I could pretend to be someone else, somewhere else, and I did it well and made both Eva and Richard proud. I had tried desperately, as a young kid, to make my parents proud but I never seemed to succeed. My father pretended we didn’t exist until he wanted someone to take his anger out on, and my mother? Well, my mother was too afraid of him to ever show us any real love or affection. It had taken me a while to trust Eva and Richard, and even longer to become accustomed to Eva’s hugs and kisses and constant words of praise. But, in the end, I accepted her praise. And it had felt good.
“I’m so happy for you both,” Eva gushed as she made her way towards the door. After two large glasses of wine and an introductory chat with Emily, plus the exit of Natalie and Ryan, Eva was finally ready to go home.
“I’ll see you soon.” I kissed her forehead before opening the door for her.
“You’d better! Make sure he visits soon, Emily, if anyone can reach him any manners I’m sure it’ll be you.” She pinched my cheek with her finger and thumb the way a mother would tease a child.
“I will, you have my word. It’s been great meeting you, Eva.” Emily reached her hand out as an invite for a shake but, instead, Eva took it and pulled her into a deep hug.
“Thank you, Emily.”
“What for?” Emily giggled, straining for air as Eva clung onto her.
“For making my boy happy! I’ve never seen him like this.”
“Okay, that’s enough. Thanks, Eva,” I interrupted as I felt an unfamiliar, uncomfortable heat spreading through my cheeks.
“See you soon.”
Eva balanced perfectly on her heels as her hurried steps sounded down the hallway until they faded to silence.
I stopped to admire the fine sight in front of me, which was Emily’s perfectly rounded backside as she crawled onto the bed, and I hardened in response.
Oh God, this is going to
kill me
, I thought as I remembered once again that I couldn’t touch her. But, it turned out that it wasn’t actually as unbearable as I had imagined, I mean, of course I would love nothing more than to be inside her right now, feeling her as she surrounded me tightly, hearing her soft moans as she melted beneath me. But, I was strangely content just to feel her naked skin against mine. She lay with her head resting heavily on my chest, her arm draped loosely across my stomach, and I couldn’t help but bury my nose in her hair and inhale as deeply as I could manage. Her scent was intoxicating. Divine. I was certain I would never tire of it. Her breathing evened out to long slow breaths, and her arm instantly felt heavier on my stomach. She twitched slightly, as she always did shortly after falling asleep, then her smooth leg came across my thigh before nestling between itself between them. I smiled to myself as my fingers brushed lightly through her long waves of hair, and I realised that I felt completely satisfied. Satisfied by simply having her close to me. So close that I could feel the steady beats of her heart as her chest pressed against my side.
Satisfied that I no longer felt the overwhelming need to claim her, she was already mine.
My pulse quickened as I pushed open the heavy white door, the last door that stood between me and Emily and my mother. As the door swung shut my mother slowly raised her head until her eyes met with mine. My breathing became quick and shallow as I looked into the eyes of a loving mother. Not a monster, but a mother who adored her one and only son. Her green eyes looked warm, and kind, not hard and angry like I remembered them.
She looked much younger than I had imagined, she didn’t appear to have aged at all in the twelve years since my last visit - in fact she looked younger. How could that be? She sat on a white plastic chair - exactly like the kind you see in a school dinner hall - in the middle of a large room. The floors, the ceiling, the walls, were all pure white. In front of her sat two more white chairs, identical to the one on which she sat. A room this size for three chairs?
Something didn’t seem quite right. Why was it all so clinical looking? What was with all the white? This was supposed to be a place where people were treated for mental illness; this was enough to drive any sane person crazy.
A bright light shone in through the large window behind her, framing her petite figure and making her look as if she were glowing. She looked angelic. This was not how I had remembered my mother. Emily squeezed at my hand and I moved, slowly placing one foot in front of the other as I made my way across the chilling room, the strong scent of disinfectant lingering in the still air.
I glanced nervously around the room - the room that seemed eerily silent, too silent to be natural. My palms began to moisten when I noticed the absence of any other beings in the room. Why wasn’t there a doctor in here, with her previous behaviour surely there should be someone close in case she should need sedating? Come to think of it, I hadn’t yet seen a single doctor. I couldn’t even figure out how I had managed to find the exact room in which my mother sat, lifeless in body but smiling adoringly at me.
“I’ve missed you,” she spoke in a velvet soft voice as I sat down on the chair opposite her, the cold plastic cooling my thighs through the thin material of my trousers. I recognised her tone of voice only slightly, from a single memory of when I was a small boy. She had stroked a gentle hand through my hair and soothed me with her soft words when my father had lashed out at me for the very first time. The very first of many. I could remember the throbbing pain in my jaw. It had hurt every time I had attempted to speak. But I couldn’t understand why. I could still feel the confusion I had felt then as he knocked me across the room.
Why did
Daddy want to hurt me?
If my father had have caught her sneaking into my bedroom that night, he most certainly would have killed her. He didn’t take kindly to feeling undermined, but she had come to me anyway.
“I see you’ve replaced me,” she said in her soft voice.
“What do you mean, Mum?”
I watched as her eyes flicked to where Emily sat in the chair next to me, still clutching my hand reassuringly, and in that split second I saw my mother’s expression harden. Her eyes narrowed and closed slowly, and when she opened them again, they were blazing. Blazing with fury and pure hatred. Her knuckles turned to white as she gripped at the edge of her chair. I had seen this very look before.
“Mother, I haven’t replaced you,” I assured her in a calm voice. I should have been telling Emily to move, to run and to get out while she still could, but for reasons unbeknown to me, I didn’t.
“That’s why you don’t visit. You have this slut to look after you now, you don’t need me.” Her voice had changed entirely; it was no longer smooth and delicate, instead, it was harsh and cold as she spat her words at me.
“Emily is the reason I have visited today, actually.”
Why am I trying to reassure this
woman?
She was crazy. She was the epitome of evil.
“Liar!” Her sickening growl sliced right through me. She must be possessed, I concluded. No human female could speak in a voice that would even resemble the noise that had just come from my mother’s mouth, it wasn’t natural.
I stared back at her, meeting her penetrative glare as she began to rock back and forth in her chair, slowly at first but rapidly getting faster, more aggressive. And then her tiny body lunged off her chair so fast that I barely had time to register her movement before my arms instinctively flew up to protect my face.
But no attack came. No steely fingers clawed at me. I gasped sharply as the realisation struck me, and as my head snapped to the left of me my stomach twisted agonisingly. “Emily!”
Emily’s empty chair was tipped on its back and beside it she lay, curled tightly into a ball as my mother clawed at her, her long waves of chestnut hair entwined and tangled around my mother’s scrawny fingers.
“No!” I heard myself roar as I jumped to my feet. I gripped at my mother’s arms and desperately tried to tug them behind her back, but she was strong, freakishly strong. I couldn’t release her hands from my fiancées hair without her taking her head with her. “Stop! Mum, please stop!” I begged.
Emily’s body was lifeless. She just lay there, not fighting back, not moving, yet I couldn’t help her. I couldn’t free her from her attacker, how could that be? A man of my size not even able to restrain a tiny woman who was barely more than five feet tall?
“Emily!” I choked through a loud sob as I sank to the floor.
I felt a soft hand stroke over my naked chest.
Why am I naked? What the fuck is going on
? And then it clicked, and thank God it did. I gasped aloud and my eyes flew open to see Emily’s face, blanketed by concern and worry as she stared down at me, her hand still stroking my chest. “It’s okay, baby. It’s just a dream.” Her voice was beautiful, so soft, so calming, and I was so glad to hear it. I circled my arms around her waist and pulled her close against me, holding her firmly whilst I focused on the light air that breezed across my neck as she exhaled regularly. “Are you okay?” she whispered, sending a shudder down my spine as her lips grazed my skin.
“I don’t think I can do it, Emily.”
“Do what? What is it?” She raised her head and her deep eyes locked with mine, but it was too painful to even look at her. I tore my gaze away and searched for a single point of focus on the ceiling. How could I have even considered taking her with me to visit my mother? How could I have been so damn pathetic to have thought I needed her there with me? I loved Emily far too much to let my mother anywhere near her, yet it had taken a dream so disgustingly disturbed to make me realise that. What sort of a man did that make me?
“I can’t go to my mother. I won’t.”
“Julian, whatever your dream was about, it was just a dream. You need to go, for Natalie.”
She was right, and I knew it, just as she always was. I couldn’t risk her telling my father about Natalie, I had to go and I had to be sweet. I had to get her on our side and keep her there. I sighed heavily and squeezed my eyes shut as I ran over my options in my head. And I found only one.
“You’re right, I’ll go. But I’m going alone.”
“Julian, I said I’d happily go with you. I meant it.” Her finger traced tiny circles on my chest as she spoke.
“I can’t believe I ever considered taking you with me. I won’t let her anywhere near you, Emily. I’ll go alone.”
“Because of your dream? You don’t have to do this alone,” Emily pressed.
“It’s just taken a dream to make me realise it, that’s all. It’s not safe for you.”
Emily lifted her head and, although I still couldn’t look at her, I could feel her eyes on my face. “It was just a dream, Julian.”
“It was a dream that could well have been reality, Emily. You can’t go there, ever.”
So, that was that. I would stick to my scheduled visit, but I would go alone. The very thought frightened me more than I would ever admit, but nowhere near as much as the thought of my mother harming Emily did. I couldn’t understand the depth of my feelings towards Emily, sure I knew I loved her, but I also loved Natalie yet I didn’t even feel this protective over her and she was my sister for goodness sake. Maybe it was simply the fact that Emily seemed so vulnerable, but even that conclusion didn’t make any sense to me because, after all, she really wasn’t vulnerable at all, I had just perceived her to be when I first met her as she clung to my chest looking so fearful as she hovered at the top of the stairs. I did wonder, that night, if she was ever going to let go of me. To be honest, a young, feeble girl clinging to my pressed suit was somewhat of an inconvenience as I had just had a blazing row with none other than Ryan and was desperately trying to make a swift exit before I smashed his face in in front of the entire work force. It wasn’t until she finally released me and looked up at me sheepishly from under her long lashes that I forgot all about why I was so angry in the first place. I suppose even then she had her strange way of calming me. The way her cheeks turned to crimson as she frantically began pushing back loose strands of hair that had managed to plaster themselves to her face was actually quite amusing to watch. But, the way she studied me, the depth in her eyes as she held my gaze, she wanted me. I could tell by the way her lips pouted as her eyes lingered on my mouth. But, the most disturbing fact was that I wanted her, too. In fact, the only reason I had released her so quickly and steadied her to her feet was that I was trying to avoid the humiliation of her feeling my erection pressed against her. Seriously, how could I have been even remotely turned on in such a situation? I knew at that very moment that this woman was something special; no woman had ever had that effect on me so instantly. I had never bothered to notice any woman’s smell before that moment but she had smelled divine, a sweet feminine scent oozed from her and seemed to linger with me for the rest of that evening until I finally couldn’t take anymore. It was either race back to The Lounge to find her, or go home and undress and shower before I did something rash. I chose the latter, but I still couldn’t get the girl out of my head. Who was she? Why had she had such an uncontrollable effect on me? And why the hell did I feel the constant urge to go to her, to touch her, to smell her?
Jesus Christ
,
I sound
like a lunatic
. And then, there she was at my lecture that I had agreed to do simply as a favour to Mr Olsen, and I knew then that I wouldn’t be able to keep away from her. No matter how hard I tried.