Dirty Seduction

Her shining light changed to frustration. I saw the shift before my eyes. She tensed up, shaking her head with a different energy.

“Stop it. Age means nothing.”

I closed the gap to sit beside her.

“You deserve someone to go on the full journey with you, not just take advantage of you at the end of theirs.”

“Yeah, yeah. You’re not worth it, you’re the sick guy who shouldn’t be doing it, and I’m just a kid, and all that.” She sighed, and our choice to bury ourselves with no outside interaction showed its face. She was becoming confident around me, aided by the close proximity of a pressure cooker of one-on-one time. “I’m capable of knowing my own mind, thanks, and I want you.”

Again, her innocent enthusiasm was touching. I took hold of her hands.

“And I want you to get what you need from life.”

“What I need is right here. Right now.”

I tried to break the tension with a smile.

“Naked, playing with marker pens, and rope, with my cock on permanent display. I’ve barely even managed to cook you a meal.”

She didn’t buy into my lighter tone.

“It’s not just about sex, and I don’t expect you to take care of me.” She pulled her hands away from mine. “Unless that’s what it is for you. Is that what it is? Is it just about fucking?”

“No, of course not.”

“So, who is going to say it first?”

This wasn’t the route I wanted the conversation to go down, but I didn’t have a choice. Her stare was too insistent. It felt stupid to play the fool, but I tried.

“Say what exactly?”

“The three magic words.”

My eyes didn’t falter from hers. “I’ll say whatever you want me to say, but that won’t make any difference. Your future will still lead you elsewhere. Or it should do.”

“I don’t want it to.” She took a breath, and the depths of her newfound confidence truly began to show itself. It was enough to give me a lurch in my stomach, proud at how much her self-worth was blooming.

“You mentioned it once before,” she said.

“Mentioned what?”

“When I asked you why you threatened Scottie to save me. You said you did it out of love.”

“Yes,” I said, “Of course I did.”

“Then I’ll say it,” she said, “I love you.”

And then her cheeks bloomed, that confidence fading. She backed down, shifting in her seat, eyes dropping. “Shit, sorry. I’d better get a drink. Do you want a coffee?”

I took hold of her wrist as she went to get up, keeping her tight. Her nervous expression was pure beauty as she dared to meet my stare.

“And I love you, Rosie.”

There, I’d said it. It was a ridiculous thing to utter out loud, but it was the truth. Infatuation and love are a fine blend, but I was way past any benchmark.

I loved Rosie. I loved the little angel enough to kill someone to keep her safe, and rescue her from any kind of darkness life could ever bring.

Her cheeks were bright, the relief in her laugh a delight.

“Cool. There we go, then. Nothing else matters.”

I wished that were true.

I pulled her into my arms for a fresh round of kisses, with guilt churning underneath my joy. Rosie shouldn’t love a man like me, but there was no point in arguing that. She’d have to find out for herself.

As it turned out, my irresponsibility in contraception wasn’t out to cause troubles this month.

It was when she got her first hint of period blood the next morning that she cursed and called out from the bathroom that she’d be digging out some of my stronger tissues. She knew they were in the bathroom somewhere. I was too far away to intervene in time, she already had the bottom drawer open fully when I stepped in, revealing my stash of overdose pills and my folded letters propped behind the tissue boxes.

Her expression turned to one of pure horror as she looked up at me from the floor, with one of the pill bottles in her hand. My colour must have drained, and hers drained along with mine. Unspoken words can be the most powerful of all. She knew what they were there for.

“When were you going to do this?” she asked.

“It was ongoing. I started stocking up the day I moved in.”

She looked so hurt for me. I could feel her heart breaking. And more. There was the slightest hint of anger in her voice when she spoke next.

“And what about now? Do you still think that’s a good idea? If you think I’m going to fuck off and leave you one day, then you’re wrong.”

“Rosie” I began, and my defeatist tone registered with her.

Her horror took on a whole new level. She pulled my half-finished letters out and tossed them on the floor. So many versions over months. The names were obvious. Katreya. Grace. Ryan. And Michael. She held up that letter without reading the content.

“My brother,” I told her.

“Right.” She was still holding it when she got to her feet. I didn’t know if she wanted to scream or burst into tears as she looked at me. Maybe both. “And you think that’s what they’d want, is it? You think they’d want to read a letter saying you’re sorry, and that you aren’t worth it and are doing them a favour. What do you think they will do? You think they’ll be able to survive after that?”This is property © NôvelDrama.Org.

I realised then that this situation wasn’t purely about me. Her pain was right from the soul. She struggled for breath as she carried on.

“You know how many times I checked for pills in Mum’s room when I was growing up? She’d always say she’d be doing everyone a favour and wasn’t worth anything, and how nobody really loved her. And the really sad thing is that she meant it. She really believed she was worthless and people would be better off with her gone. She probably still does, and that’s why a complete piece of shit like Scottie can exploit her, because she is desperate and wants to be loved. But I loved her. ME. I always will!”

“Oh, Rosie, I’m sorry.”

The thought of her checking through her mum’s possessions as a child, scared that her provider would take an overdose and leave her behind was nothing short of horror. The tremble of Rosie’s lip said it all. I wasn’t going to block her fountain of emotion finding its release.

“So, you technically cheated on your wife? When you already knew she didn’t want you? Fine. And you like younger girls, and you had a lot of sex with them? What’s so bad about that?”

I answered as calmly as I could.

“A lot is bad about that. Cheating isn’t ok, no matter what the circumstances, and those girls shouldn’t have been taken advantage of. I should have been the mature party.”

“They were legal age, right?”

I couldn’t dispute that. I nodded.

“Yes, they were.”

“And they wanted you? You didn’t force anyone?”

“No, of course I didn’t force anyone.”

“And they wanted you, yes?” she repeated.

I pictured all the flirtatious glances and lip biting, and the glee the girls I fucked showed when I succumbed to their efforts and initiated filthy contact.

“Yes, they wanted it.”

“Great. So, why do you think that’s worth capital punishment? You really think that’s worth the death penalty?”

When she put it like that, it sounded quite disproportionate. But it wasn’t just about that.

“My family disowned me, and rightly so. It’s about them, and saying goodbye now I’ve disgraced them and tainted my memory.” I paused. “Maybe it was selfish of me. Wanting to wipe out my own existence after leaving theirs.”

“It’s not selfish!” she cried. “I’m not blaming you, Julian, I’m just saying you’re hurting, and kicking your own self-worth down, and you’re torn to pieces inside. That needs help. That deserves help. You don’t deserve to punish yourself like this!”

“And neither does your mother, of course. I know that must have broken you,” I said, and she nodded, tears beginning to spill.

“I tried to help, and I tried to get her to the doctors, and I tried to tell her she needed therapy, or support, or whatever else it would take, because it wasn’t fair she had to go through that. It wasn’t fair her parents made her believe she was that shit, by throwing her out when she was pregnant at seventeen!”

“I’m sorry to hear that was the case. And it wasn’t fair that YOU had to go through that, either,” I told her, stabbed by the realisation of poor Beverly’s inner torture. “Has she tried to contact them? Her parents? Maybe they can build some bridges. With therapy alongside that, she may be able to feel some relief.”

“So, what about you?” Rosie replied, shifting the focus back onto me.

“Have you tried to build any bridges? You said you left without looking back, when they disowned you. They don’t even know where you are, do they?”

My own walls came up.

“They won’t want to build bridges. I’m nothing but a seedy embarrassment.”

“You don’t know that! They might!”

I pictured Katreya’s shocked rage, and the way Grace screamed at me, condemning me as nothing more than a depraved, abusive cunt.

Rosie must have known there was no point trying to convince me at that point. She took out all of the pills and placed them by the sink.

“Promise me you won’t do this,” she said. “You told me you love me. Is that true?”

There was no doubt in my heart.

“Yes, that’s true.”

“I’m begging you, then, please. Just like I begged Mum. Please, promise me you won’t do this. I don’t want you to leave my life. Not ever. I don’t want you to feel like you have to give up on yours!”

Her hurt and panic was so palpable, and seeing her there, so fragile and genuine with her soul on full display, was enough to surpass my own.

“I promise,” I told her, my own feelings of built-up depression and self-hate smashed by her pain.

With that she broke. The sobs came, and the relief came, and she put her hand to her chest, her eyes still on me.

“You swear?!”

“I swear,” I said, and held her tight as she let the dam burst inside.

I did swear it, because Rosie was too much of a delicate, beautiful creature to hurt. My family had banished me, and I deserved that, but Rosie didn’t deserve my suffering to affect her. She was a divine spark of a soul, worthy of everything I had to give.

“I love you,” she said through the sobs. “Please, believe me, Julian. I do!”

“And I love you, too,” I told her, and with that, the tiniest glimmer of hope blessed me, shining through the heaps of fatality I’d held in an icy grip since I walked away from Oxford.

Maybe my little princess was right, after all. Maybe age gaps meant nothing, and our future could wind ahead, further than this excuse of a shithole. She was worthy of whatever she wanted, everything she craved and loved and desired, no matter what that everything would be.

One thing was for sure as a result of that.

I held her tighter and kissed the top of her head.

I’d do my very best to give it to her.