Chapter 131
ROSIE
MY morning lessons flew by at college, and i was immune to any whispers or sneers coming my way. I didn’t give a shit about any of them, and I didn’t really give a shit about my classes today, either. I barely touched my notebooks or looked at my previous study notes, focusing purely on the textbooks in front of me and my little spiral bound jotter, flying high on the excitement of what was to come. I had a friend again. A real one, not a fake one.
I met Lola in the library at lunchtime, and I didn’t even bother taking my novel out, just as she didn’t bother with her laptop. It was all about us, and the chatter.
“Peter’s really keen to meet up,” she told me again. “He thinks dinner sounds great.”
“Fab. Are you happy to come to ours, then?”
The terms ours was becoming so much more natural.
“Yeah, whenever you want.”
“Saturday night?”
She nodded. “Sounds great.”
In the meantime, we had plenty of time to spend together.
Our lunchtime of chatter turned into another session of sitting on the college wall when lessons were done, and our conversation topics turned from daily life to our pasts. Lola had a mum who was the opposite to mine in a lot of ways. She was bossy, and shouted at every opportunity about how everyone else was an idiot, including the guys she was seeing then ditching at every opportunity. It sounded like she had an over inflated ego, whereas my mum doubted herself through every single breath she took.
“She screeched down the whole street when she found out and chucked me out. I didn’t even have a bag for my clothes, she just chucked them into the road,” she said. “Luckily Pete really did have his door open, otherwise I’d have been pretty much fucked with nowhere to go.”
“She hasn’t spoken to you since?”
“No, she’s too fucked off. Still says I’m a fucking idiot every chance she gets, no matter how long me and Pete are together, but I’m lucky. She says a lot worse about him.” She paused, looking at me as though she was about to share a secret. I didn’t push her, just waited. “I’m pretty sure she had her eye on him herself on the run up to us getting together. He’d always been great to her, and he’s hot. I think she was pretty sure he’d be her next conquest.”
It touched a little close to home, so I shared the parallel. I’d already told Lola how Julian had saved us from Scottie, but some parts of the tale were still in the dark.
“My mum definitely wanted Julian. After he stormed in and saved her, she got trashed and went up to his place with a bottle of wine, but he didn’t let her in.”
Lola’s mouth dropped. “Shit. She must have been gutted. My mum didn’t have to handle the knockback of putting herself out there, at least.”
“Yeah. She was. It was sad, because I thought he’d make an awesome partner for her. She deserves one. He could have made a fab stepdad.”
“But you got him instead.”
I still felt a flash of guilt at that.
“Yeah. He wanted me, not her.”
“Just as well, or you’d have been crazy in love with your daddy by now. Talk about daddy issues.” She had a point there. “Your mum won’t speak to you now? At all?”
“No. Says she can’t accept it. That he’s disgusting. Probably doesn’t help that she’s got everyone around her saying the same thing.”
“Yeah, welcome to my world. Hopefully they’ll be able to turn it around and speak to us again one day, right? I miss Mum. Really, really bad. Even her bitchy shouting.”
I knew the pain in her voice. It gave me a pang of my own. I missed my mum like absolute hell, and I was worried about her. I could feel the fears creeping in a little more every second, about her self-esteem, about Scottie, about how she’d cope for money. About everything. I only hoped Trisha would step up to really support her for once.
“I don’t think my mum will ever be able to handle me and Julian being together,” I said. “I just can’t see it. She was so upset when I saw her the other day.”
“It’s early days for you, I guess.”
“Yours has been holding off for over a year, right?”
She shrugged. “I’m still classing that as early days. I’ll never be able to let go of the hope, you know? Some of my cousins are kind of ok with Pete now, but they’re just kids. They don’t scream how fucked up we are down the street.”
I wondered then if Julian still had hope about his own family, deep down. He’d lost a lot more than we had. He’d lost everything, with no hope of crossing paths with his family, so far away, especially since they didn’t even know where he was. I couldn’t imagine how he’d managed to keep it together, but then remembered he hadn’t. He’d had the stash of overdose pills and goodbye letters ready to go.
Thank fuck I’d saved him on some level, just as he’d saved me.
Lola lit up a cigarette, checking up and down the empty street. The other students were all long gone.
“Come on, then. Spill. How hot is Julian in the bedroom? You tell me yours, and I’ll tell you mine.”
I laughed. “You might want to tell me yours first, mine can get a little bit… um…”Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.
My voice trailed off, and she must have seen the blush on my cheeks.
“Dirty?” she finished. “Don’t worry about that. You’re not the only one who likes filthy books, you know. I like filthy art, too. A load of my stuff is NSFW. Pete loves it.”
The relief flooded through me. I’d had no idea how much I’d needed to share the details of my newfound sex life with someone until then. I was still coming to know myself, and getting a glimpse of how far my own sexuality went. I’d never thought my interest in books would come to life, but it had. I was loving every second. Craving more.
“Julian’s filthy. Like, really filthy.”
“Whips and chains type filthy, or take it up his ass with a cucumber type filthy? Or both?”
I giggled. “If you mean sub or dom, then he’s definitely dom.”
“Whips and chains?”
“Rope mainly.” I had the faint burn marks on my wrists from last night and pointed them out to her.
“Nice.” She hitched up her skirt to show me a huge purple bruise on the inside of her thigh. “Pete likes pain play. A lot. I like praise. A lot. It’s a great combination.”
I loved her openness. It made my own so much easier.
“Julian is a weird blend. On one hand he worships me like I’m like a princess, on the other he likes me to be a filthy little slut for him. He likes writing trash on me in marker pen and fucking my face like I’m a toy.”
She laughed. “That’s a great combination. Maybe he and Peter can exchange notes.”
I opted to share some more.
“He’s started writing again. Filthy stuff. Last night I got in and he’d written a hardcore scene that blew my mind crazy, and I wanted it.”
“You acted it out?”
I nodded. “Yeah. It was one of those, umm… stretch your pussy scenes.”
“Wow! Did he fist you?”
She sounded so natural with it, it was amazing to hear.
“No. He actually used a whisk. He wanted to look inside.”
She raised her eyebrows, stubbed her cigarette out and gave me a high five.
“Holy shit, that’s fucking hot. He should publish that. People would be buying whisks all over the world.”
I laughed. “It was pretty hot.”
“Did it hurt?”
“A bit. This morning.”
“Did he use the whisk after? For food?” She laughed. “Please tell me he did.”
I shot her a side glance, unable to hold back my grin.
“We both did.”
“Nice work. Just please don’t use it straight after fuck play when we come over for dinner. Not sure Pete will want Julian’s cum over the top of his ice cream sundae.”
She cracked me up, both of us laughing like schoolgirls, which was epic, since I hadn’t felt like I could be one in years.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “I’ll make sure we’re well behaved. I’ll hide the marker pens, too.”
She reached in her bag, pulling out her laptop and balancing it on her lap. She switched it on and clicked straight into a directory, and she hadn’t been lying with NSFW artwork. Her stuff was fierce, and filthy. The girls were bound like whores being taken by beasts of men, and all of them looked incredible. She was a master at illustration.
“Think Julian will want a book cover one day?” she asked.
“I don’t think that would make it onto a book cover, somehow.”
“It might if I put less emphasis on bare tits and gaping pussy.”
“Cock, too.”
“Damnit, losing the cock would be a crime. Maybe I should put a whisk on it instead.” She laughed. “But seriously, I’d love to read some of his filth, honestly. Think he’ll let me?”
“You can ask him on Saturday.”
“Yeah. I will. I can’t wait to see what he looks like in person. I’ve got an idea in my head. One of the posh billionaire types. I’ve drawn quite a few of them.”
I wished I had some photos of Julian so she could compare the vision with the reality. I was confident he’d live up to it. Salt and pepper brilliance, with his gorgeous green eyes and his smile.
I needed to take some pictures of him, and I’d known it for days. I hadn’t done so far, because, I dunno, it felt so early. But I should do. I would start doing it. In the meantime, I only had the ones of him online, so I opted to show her some. I fished in my bag for my phone, but it was lost in the depths. I barely looked at it anymore now that Mum wasn’t in touch with me, so I hadn’t even noticed. It must be buried at the bottom, under my notebooks. Damnit, I hadn’t even thought to check the time on my phone, but it prompted Lola to look at hers.
“Fuck, it’s nearly seven. We should go. I’ve got dinner to get on. Pete will be starving.”
“Seven?! Yeah, shit. Time’s run away.”
She packed her laptop back up as I was still searching for my phone, thinking I should send Julian a message to say I was coming. I didn’t find my phone, though. I found something else first. An envelope wedged between two notebooks, right at the bottom. I opened my bag wide enough to see it. It had a scrawl on the front, Julian’s handwriting, and it was sealed tight.
For you, sweetheart. No protests, please.
That could only mean one thing. I could feel the wad of notes in there.
I didn’t open it right then, just shoved it back in my bag and set off with Lola, finally fishing out my phone and messaging Julian as we walked. I’ll be home soon xx
Lola and I separated with a hug this time, and I waved her up the street, my heart pounding as I reached the nearest tree and propped myself against it, checking the contents of the envelope while making sure I was out of anyone’s view.
He’d put four hundred in there, way more than a week’s worth of wages, and it welled me up, conflicted. A big part of me didn’t want to take it, because he did more than enough for me already, and I was his lover, not his employee, but the other part knew it was necessary. Without my pizza house shifts I hardly had any money left in my account. It would run out soon, and I’d be without a penny, unable to buy anything I needed on my own.
That wasn’t purely it, though. There was more to it than that.
I was torn about more than just the financial effect my job loss was having on me as I walked back to our block. My legs were shaking by the time I reached the main entrance, worried as to whether I was making the right decision, but fuck it. I pressed myself into the alcove to the side of the door and used one of my hairbands to bind some of the cash together, counting out the usual amount I’d hand over to my mum. She’d be needing it, especially with Trisha taking her down the pub to ease her woes. I tore out a page of my notebook and wrote her a simple message.
This is for you. To help. I love you. x
The floor was empty when I stepped up to the front door I’d called home for ever. I was able to push the money and the note through the letterbox with nobody hearing, and thank fuck for that, because it meant that Mum was probably at her work shift. I just hoped that she was ok.
I prayed that she was ok.
I’d give anything to see her again. To speak to her again. To watch shit TV and drink tea with her again.
Anything except Julian.
I was welled up with tears when I opened my new front door, caught up in a crazy combination of different emotions, all piling up together. Gratitude, relief, the loss of my mum at odds with the happiness of finding Lola, and my love for him. Julian. The man pulling me into his arms like I was his world.
“Thank you,” I said to him, through the tears, and he knew exactly what I was talking about.
He held me even tighter, planting a kiss on my head as I cried against his shirt.
“It’s yet another time you don’t need to say thank you, sweetheart. You deserve it. The pleasure is all mine.”