Dirty Seduction

ROSIE

I felt so secure as i woke in julian’s arms. The night had brought connections between us I didn’t even know were possible. Any walls between us had fallen away and left nothing but soul to soul alongside body to body. I felt like I belonged here, with him. I’d never imagined I could be so wanted by such an amazing man.

Julian was an amazing man, but he’d lost sight of it, buried under guilt and shame. I was going to do everything I could to make him happy, just as he was giving his all to help me. I never, ever wanted that to change.

I looked at him as he was sleeping, breaths steady at my side, and I knew I could stay here for ever. I didn’t want to move.

My filthy saviour had been less than bothered about period blood last night. He’d fucked me like it meant nothing to have his cock, fingers and his mouth smeared red, but I didn’t want to bleed all over the bed and everything else in his apartment. I’d likely left smears enough already. His tissues were good, but they wouldn’t cut it as sanitary towels, so shove it. He could tell me it didn’t matter all he wanted, but I needed to grab some of my own supplies from downstairs. I needed to take some responsibility, at least.

I should probably book an appointment at the clinic and get some contraception meds started soon as well, counting this one period as a lucky blessing, given how much I’d had Julian’s cock inside me.

The thought of climbing down the stairs and letting myself in through my own front door felt alien, but it may as well be now.

I didn’t want to disturb my sleeping hero, so I slid out of the covers as softly as I could. I hadn’t bothered to charge my phone last night. I had to scout around the apartment to even find it. There it was, on the dining room table behind some coffee mugs.

I picked it up with a yawn and flicked on the screen, expecting my usual solitary check in message from Mum, but not this time. I had five missed calls from late last night. I could hardly breathe as I clicked to open her latest messages.

I called into the pizza house on the way to work to get a sight of you. I know you quit, and they’d never heard of Jenny.

The next one.

Where the hell are you? Who is Jenny? I know she’s a guy, so bring him over. He can stay in your room, you aren’t twelve, you know. At least let me meet him.

The idea of presenting the man upstairs in our living room with a SURPRISE! was enough to give me shivers. Mum would probably faint out cold before she even had the chance to start yelling. The whole block would be there with popcorn as chaos unfolded, because Mum would never accept Julian was the love of my life, not in a billion years.

It slammed it into me in full colour, and not just in fuzzy imagination. Real life really was out there, waiting, but I didn’t want to be a part of it. I preferred my cocoon up here, so I needed to protect it as well as possible. My bravery shrivelled up in seconds.

I checked the time, and it was still early. Mum wouldn’t be home from her night shift yet, so I took advantage of it. Fast. I threw on my solitary outfit and checked my face wasn’t still covered in the aftermath of marker pen obscenities, and then I dashed downstairs with a thumping heart, two steps at a time. I only had a few short minutes.

It felt weird to put my key in the door and dart inside. I grabbed the few sanitary towels I still had stashed in the bathroom drawer, and I could do with at least a few more clothes. I couldn’t live either naked or in Julian’s shirts and socks for ever.

I jammed a selection from my wardrobe into a bag without care. Some tops, some jeans. Socks, bras, knickers. I didn’t even bother to close my bag, I was so desperate to get out of there. I checked that my room looked the same and I hadn’t ransacked it in desperation, grateful that I was still in time to get back upstairs before Mum stepped through the door, because I wasn’t ready to face her yet. The questions would be way, way harder to field in person. She knew me far too well.

I sighed with grateful relief when I closed the front door behind me, just in time to escape without Mum catching me. I was charging across the hall to the ascending stairs when I heard Trisha’s door opening. My lovely neighbour stepped right on out before I had the chance to get out of sight, bouncing Ramsay in her arms.

Oh, my fucking life, it was the worst possible timing.

Fuck.

Our eyes met.

There was no avoiding the obvious. I was standing there like a criminal with my hand on the banister rail and a bag of half spilling clothes on my shoulder, and she looked at me with piercing eyes.

“Where are you off to?” she asked.

What could I say? I was on the spot, floundering. I couldn’t say I meant to go downstairs, not upstairs, so I faked a grin, hating how much I was lying. I blustered, struggling.

“I thought I’d call in on Bertie upstairs. I heard he was struggling a bit with his crutches, so I thought I’d ask him if he needed anything from the shop on my way back from college.”

She looked at the bag on my shoulder.

“College. Right.” Her eyes were so suspicious they burnt. She turned back to her door to lock up, and I used the chance to give her a bye, catch you later, before I kept on climbing, but I didn’t get far before her voice sounded out again. “Bev said you quit the pizza place. Weird you didn’t tell her, don’t you think?”

I turned back around to face Mum’s best friend. “Yeah, I did quit. It was interfering with college.”

“Right, sure. Does this Jenny girl hang around with you at college, then? I thought she was from the pizza place.” “No, Jenny isn’t from college.”

“So, where’s she from? Is she local?”

I hated how Trisha felt she was entitled to know everything in the universe. She was a curtain twitcher at the best of the times, and a gossip about every single person in Crenham Drive. I knew that whatever I said would be around the estate within hours, so I opted for another lie, feeling like an asshole, but I daren’t even think about telling her the truth.

“Dine’s Green. She’s from Dine’s Green.”

“Really?” Trisha said. “I know a load of families in Dine’s Green. You’ll probably have seen them around. I’ll ask them to take care of you, don’t worry.”

Her smile was so fake that I knew I was doomed. She’d likely be messaging people from the very moment she had her phone in her hand, and I didn’t have anything to say. I was already dug deep into a hole of my own lies that I couldn’t get out of. So I baulked. Bailed. Bought myself some time.

“I’d better get up there to Bertie,” I said. “I’ve got college soon.”

“Yeah,” she replied, with another fake smile. “You’d best get up to him. Say hi from me.”

Trisha didn’t give a shit about Bertie. Thank fuck nobody really liked her in this place. He’d probably tell her to get lost if she went calling. I just prayed she wouldn’t snoop that far. At least uncovering the no Jenny in Dine’s Green would take a little bit longer.

I bounded upstairs with another see you later, but kept my back pressed tight to the wall around the corner, just out of view, until I made sure she’d left the place. I heard the main door slam closed downstairs, and the true force of our conversation fully hit me. Trisha was onto me…

And so was Mum.

With Trisha fuelling the fire, I had no chance of maintaining the secrecy. I felt sick as I let myself back in to Julian’s, hating how our cocoon of a life was going to be shattered to pieces. It was only a matter of time.

“Hey, sweetheart,” he called out from the kitchen, and I went in to find him pouring out the last of the muesli between two bowls. “I think we’ll be on the remains of my crappy pre-made pasta soon. We’re almost out of decent supplies. At some point I’m going to have to step out of here.”

He caught sight of my bag, with the clothes thrown inside. He mistook it for being a good thing, his face lighting up.

“Excellent. Feel free to use the wardrobe. There’s plenty of space in there.”Content bel0ngs to Nôvel(D)r/a/ma.Org.

If only he knew…

Shit. I’d have to tell him.

There were no more berries for muesli, so he handed the bowl over to me with nothing but milk and sugar. I was shaking as I took it from him, and his eyes narrowed on mine.

“Are you ok? What just happened?”

My God, I was so scared of his response, and his fear, and his freaking out at the thought that we’d be busted. I blabbed it all out in one long stream, to get it out of the way as quickly as possible.

“Mum messaged, she knows I quit work and that there is no Jenny. I went down before she got home to grab some things, and I needed sanitary towels, and I was quick, I swear, but Trisha saw me on the stairs, and I said it was about Bertie, and helping him get some shopping after college, but she knows something’s up, and she knows”

He cut my ramble short, putting his hands on my shoulders.

“Take a breath,” he said. “At least you didn’t have slut written across your forehead.”

He laughed.

I didn’t. I covered my face in my hands and groaned.

“I’m so sorry, seriously. I should have been more careful. I could have come up with something better than Jenny, right from the start.”

“Shh,” he said, and planted a kiss on my head. “We were on a limited time window, and that was always the case. This place isn’t exactly a private island, and you couldn’t stay locked in here for ever, no matter how tempting the prospect would be.”

I got a fresh bout of nerves. “What happens now, then? Do I go downstairs and sneak up here when nobody’s looking? Do I pretend I’ve split up with Jenny, and go back to college and wait until I can get up here when there’s nobody to see me?”

His eyes were so serious. “Is that what you want?”

“No!” I said. “But you don’t want the bullshit, do you? Everyone will be out to cause shit. Mum will freak out, and Trisha will be a bitch around the whole city.”