Only the Strongest Survive (22 page)

“
I don’t want
to even think about it,” she said angrily
, and moved away. She opened the door, sped along the
corridor and down the stairs and then mixed in with the
crowd.

*

The whole of
the following week
Emely did nothing but
work. Often she thought of him, but immediately suppressed the
thoughts.
I can’t do
it,
she said.
Not now, with a career ahead of me. I’ll get a man
later.

But things
didn
’t work out according to her plans.
Blake called her at work. It was Monday and coming up to nine
o’clock in the evening. His timing was good; she was getting tired
and slightly dispirited. For a few days there had been no good
deals and she was getting desperate. When she heard his voice, she
cheered up. And she accepted his invitation.

*

What happened
next was what she had feared most. They had a drink in a bar and
then she could resist him no more. She found
Blake so attractive and it had been such a long time since
she had been with a man.

He lived on
the fourth floor of an older brownstone. Hungry for love and
tenderness, they nearly broke the lock to his apartment trying to
get in and immediately tore each other’s clothes off after the door
was closed. Their hands were everywhere, as if trying to feel every
inch of each other, kissing, biting, and sucking.

He lifted her
as if she were a feather and carried her to his bed. He liked the
fact that she was fully his and she enjoyed feeling his strong
hands on her. Not wanting to part from his lips, she kept pulling
him toward her. They swapped positions a number of times, as if
competing for being the one on top. Emely won in the end. She
wanted to be above him; even now she wanted to be in
control.

*

Emely had
hoped
to spend the rest of her life with
Blake, but it was not to be. At the beginning, their relationship
was passionate. Despite that, later it turned into routine,
everyday meetings. Finally they had to admit they weren’t a
suitable match. They parted with no bitterness or
sadness.

A
year later, Emely’s company ran into problems
and she became involved in some shady business. She needed a good
lawyer but couldn’t afford the most expensive ones, so she called
Blake and explained it all to him.

“
It’s no
problem, Emely. If you want, I can come around this afternoon and
you can show me the papers. Until I see the contracts, I can’t
promise anything.” A few hours later he picked up all the
documents.

After spending the night examining them, he
called her early in the morning. “I think we’ll win. You did want
to go to court, didn’t you?”

“
I don’t
know, Blake. Anything. I want the money back that I
invested.”

“OK, don’t worry. I have a few good friends
among the judiciary and I’m sure we’ll manage to take this thing to
completion within six months. Is that alright with you?”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Don’t thank me, I haven’t done anything yet.
Leave your worries to me and concentrate on other deals.”

As he had promised, the trial started six
months later. She was amazed when she saw his appearance in front
of the jury. The loving, gentle man she had known turned into a
merciless tyrant who did everything in his power to beat her
opponent. His quiet voice became as deep as a bear’s and almost too
loud for the small courtroom. A few times he came so close to the
witnesses that they nearly sank into their seats.

When finally
the verdict was read in Emely’s favor, all she could say was,
“Amazing. I cannot believe it.”

That was when
she decided he
’d be the legal
representative of her company. In addition to a high salary, she
also offered him a share in her company if he represented her for
at least ten years. Her decision proved to be a good
investment.

Chapter
12

_______________________

During the
next two weeks, Emely and John were together nearly all the time.
In the morning, they followed the trading on the stock exchange and
speculated. At noon, John went to the kitchen and fixed them
something to eat. They had their lunch in Emely’s room, and the
trading went on until five o’clock. Afterward, they had a nap and
then dinner, which continued to surprise Emely.

While eating,
they talked about different matters in a relaxed manner. Emely
always tried to put John in a good mood and ensured there were no
awkward silences. She knew how to listen for hours. Often, John was
quiet and with time she
learned how to
get him to talk and then he sometimes found it hard to stop. When
he was in a bad mood, she directed the conversation toward subjects
that cheered him up. If he was nervous, she looked at him with her
gentle eyes and puckered her sensual lips so that he soon calmed
down. She wanted him to enjoy every minute with her, and he
did.

Gradually he
began revealing things he would have never mentioned in the past.
Once
, he confessed that he used to wet
the bed when he was a child. This embarrassed him and Ronald kept
scolding him. He even told her that once he really had been in
love. He was eighteen at the time and met a girl from the
neighboring street. All the boys envied him since she was very
beautiful. John used to wait all day for her to come out of her
house. Until one day she didn’t. He rang the bell and she screamed
at him through the open window that she didn’t care about him
anymore, in such a loud voice that the whole neighborhood could
hear. He nearly died from embarrassment and this experience had
made him hate all girls.

Emely listened and always offered words of
comfort. When necessary, she was critical and when he was
vulnerable, she caressed him with her responses, noticing how he
got mellower with every passing day.

Everything
was going according to plan. She still saw in him an enemy who was
keeping her incarcerated and she just waited for her moment to
arrive.
She felt it getting closer. A few
times she had had an opportunity to hit him with a bottle or
another hard object, but she was never sure that he wasn’t watching
her without her being aware of it. She was waiting for a moment
when he’d turn his back to her. Then she would show no
mercy.

After dinner
they frequently went for a short walk around the nearby clearing
and enjoyed the sounds of the crickets and other wildlife. Often
they did not go to bed until after midnight. If John had errands in
town, he drove there straight after lunch so that he could spend
the evening with her. He no longer went out late at night. A few
times he became aware of feeling stressed and nervous during the
few hours he wasn’t with her. It passed as soon as they saw each
other again. He never thought of her as a sexual object and was
still getting flashes of horrifying images at night so that he woke
drenched in sweat, thinking she was dead.

What he saw
in her was someone with whom he felt good. He
didn
’t delve into these feelings, just
surrendered to the relationship they had and was happy that it was
as it was. Until now he had never met anyone who wanted to spend as
much time with him and listen to him for hours. Emely was the first
who never complained and always agreed with him. She possessed
everything he wanted from someone with whom he would like to
live.

One evening
Emely seemed a little absentminded. He knew she was thinking of
friends and that she was upset. Her eyes were becoming moist and he
could see immense sadness in them. When he went to bed that night,
he was sad too. He was aware of reality and thought how one day he
would have to let her go. This thought seemed suffocating and
produced a hitherto unknown pain in his heart. It scared him so
much that he chased the thought away at once, it was just too
painful. Only a few hours without her seemed torture to him; a few
days or even weeks were inconceivable. He would go
crazy.

Days passed. While he admired her and enjoyed
every moment with her, she waited. Waited and waited, never giving
up hope. She had learned patience. Like a spider capable of
spending days perfectly still sitting in its net, knowing that prey
would appear sooner or later. She, too, possessed a huge desire to
kill. The only difference was that she was not waiting for prey but
a careless moment that would save her from her prison. On the
outside she was calm and gentle, but evil was brewing inside her
and she often imagined cruel scenes. In her imagination, she had no
mercy, only hatred that grew with every day.

*

She needs company,
John suddenly
thought. In the afternoon he went to a pet shop in town. He spent a
long time looking at the yappy, small, cuddly bundles that were
begging with their pleading eyes to be given a home. He hesitated
for quite some time before he finally chose one of the
puppies.

When Emely
saw the helpless animal, she was
surprised. Pressing the little puppy close to her chest,
she squealed and nearly cried with joy. She had wanted a dog all
her life. When she was a child she kept asking the nuns, but they
soon took the idea out of her head. Later her business and desire
for success didn’t allow her any time for herself, let alone anyone
or anything else.

“He’s so sweet,” she kept saying as she
cuddled the frightened dog. “Where did you get him?”

John was excited to see Emely so touched. He
had spent days wondering how to bring a little joy into her life
and now he knew that he had hit the jackpot. “I bought her for you.
You’ve often mentioned that you like animals.”

“For me? I can’t believe it. But this is
impossible. Who’ll take him for walks? Dogs have their needs, just
like people.”

Emely’s nose
was pressed into the puppy’s furry coat and she never stopped
stroking the frightened dog.

“
In the
morning and at
lunchtime I’ll take her
and in the evening we’ll go together.”

“And what if Ronald appears?”

“
I’ve thought
about that too. If she doesn’t bark, there won’t be a problem. If
she does, I’ll quickly come and get her and keep her upstairs. It’s
a Yorkshire terrier and they’re so small that they can live in a
constrained space, like your room. Besides, they have such short
legs that they get tired after only a twenty-minute walk. They
don’t need as much attention as some dogs. Oh, and it’s a she, not
a he.”

“
Oh, John,
I’m so glad,” Emely said, nearly crying. Still cuddling the dog,
she put a hand on one of his shoulders and kissed him spontaneously
on the forehead. A moment of confusion and silence followed. Emely
wasn’t sure why she had done it. She was so happy and perhaps at
that moment she really did want to kiss him, but she regretted it
only a second later.

John was
breathless. His body felt heavy, as if made of iron, and his face
got incredibly hot. His cheeks turned bright-red, while his heart
became a time bomb, the ticking of which seemed very loud to
him.

*

While cooking
dinner he was still confused and tense. He forgot to add salt to
the meat and oil to the salad dressing. His thoughts had been
unable to move away from that warm kiss.
What’s happened to me, I can’t stop thinking about
her
. He longed to touch her gently, but
was afraid of being rejected. He didn’t want to take her by force
and wanted her to desire him as well. But that seemed
impossible.

*

At dinner,
the main theme of their conversation was the newcomer, whom they
named Kitty. Emely kept getting up from the table, ensuring Kitty
didn’t wander too far away. In her excitement she didn’t even
notice that the meat was not salted, but John did and spread a
pinch of salt over her plate when she wasn’t looking.

“You’ll be less bored when you’re alone in
your room,” he said while she spent more time on the floor than at
the table.

“John, I’m so happy,” she said sincerely.
“I’ve always wanted a dog and don’t really know why I never got
one. Now I see how much pleasure I’ve missed out on.”

He smiled briefly and looked down in
embarrassment. Her beautiful blue eyes sent his blood gushing in
his veins every time he looked at her. “After dinner, the three of
us can go for a short stroll.”

“A wonderful idea.”

Without a
thought of what she was eating,
Emely
gobbled the meal down, barely able to wait for dinner to be over so
she could go and see Kitty running around outside. Her enthusiasm
was like a child’s. In recent years she had concluded some deals
that were worth millions of dollars, she had bought factories,
hotel chains and other large companies, but had never felt as much
joy as she did when that little puppy danced around her legs. She
watched John looking at Kitty for a few moments and in a way he no
longer seemed so terrible to her. She stopped being afraid of him.
His eyes, which in her view always reflected nothing but disdain
and coldness, now seemed warm and gentle.
Maybe he’s not that bad after all,
she thought.
Oh no,
I’m getting sentimental. I’ve just fallen for one of his
tricks.