The very next morning, the alarm rang and drew me out of my deep sleep. I let out a deep sigh as I stretched my hand towards the the phone. Lathi-tha's phone was the one ringing, from beneath her pillow even though the bed and room felt devoid of her presence. The room's brightness only caused my fluttering squints, as the struggle to adapt to the room's lightning only worsened my headache. Lathi-tha had honestly left the curtains wide open. She caused me the headache too, thanks to the sharp sensations she'd inserted in my vagina which my brain had failed digest or accomodate.
Struggling to keep them open I could finally see the golden sunlight inhabiting, and emphasizing the beauty of, Lathi-tha's purple-themed room; which also felt dominated by the fresh scents of Lavender flowers which I soon noticed to be lurking near her windows. Her puce curtains matching with the pictures frames and colourful artworks which hung on the left side of her wall, including a colourful sketch of me and her, taken nearly two years ago.
11:00 o'clock stretched her clock as my phone too continued vibrating above my chest, interrupting my deep thoughts and making me slide off her cushy bed, and walk towards the lovely lavenders whose scent the wind kept sweeping into the house. By the time I went to bath, the smell of lavenders had left my nostrils tingling.
"I've made you breakfast," was the note I found on my bed when I returned from my bath, the same bath which had failed to was away my girl-on-girl sins, nor my pussy's craving of her tongue. Even whilst giggling to the note, I quietly groaned to headache as it got worse with my stretching smile. All was lovely until a fresh picture of the creepy guy with the orange overalls crept behind my eyelids, and awakened the growling of my hungry stomach.
My thoughts were still racing with various explanations to the previous night's mystery as I smoothly rubbed my lotion against my skin, applying to my back and my beautiful legs. The same ones which guys on campus as well as Carl and Jordan had always adored
"Maybe its just a friend of the triplets," I said to myself as I put on Lathi-tha's pink T-dress before walking through the passage towards the kitchen. To my surprise, every piece of evidence regarding the party had completely vanished, as though the party had just been a dream. Yathi-tha or Lathi-tha was now singing in the shower, and in the kitchen and lounge I saw Nathi-tha and two other girls carrying some trash bags outside, just before I saw Lathi-tha setting up a table infront of the TV. "90 Days to Wed" playing on the TV as she giggled and blew me a kiss, before teasingly sticking out her tongue towards me.
"Loosen up a bit... And i'm not lesbian, i'm just enjoying the best of both worlds"
"Thought you said you were just going through a process Lathi-tha," I giggled.
"Honestly, she's had a crush on you for a while now...," confessed Nathi-tha, "ever since that last meeting of ours, where we tried to solve the Jordan issue between you and Cassidy."
"It's fine hun, I've got no regrets... Just thinking about that creepy figure I told you about"
"You mean the one you told me, cuddling next to me in bed," Lathi-tha's giggle made me blush.
"She told me 'bout it this morning, I think its Jordan... If not another goon of Mr X," assumed Nathi-tha as she joined us on the couch before slowly inhaling the aromatic scent of the Lunch that her sister had prepared.
"Or maybe it was Carl, who'd come to warn me about Lathi-tha's romantic acts," I contradicted.
"But what if it was truly Jordan?" I felt the depth of Lathi's words as she looked at me with sincere and distant eyes.
"I'd say that coward was working for Mr X," asserted Yathi-tha as she walked into the lounge.
"How did you know what we were talking about?" Shock quickly spread across my face.
"Obviously I just guessed," She looked away condescendingly, "I could smell the tension, plus you three seem deeply immersed in thought. She said as she wiped her hands, whilst giggling and avoiding my eye contact.
"But don't worry Leigh, I've got your back... You don't need a boyfriend to make you realize your beauty or self-worth." Lathi-tha clasped my hand.
"Will you two expressing your love while we're eating, i'm still struggling to digest this"
"let them be Nathi-tha, Mr X will message one of them real soon..." Yathi-tha placed down her fork and wiped her mouth, " He drove past, and stopped by this morning.
"Please don't tell me you gave him mine. That's when we cupped our mouths and burst into laughter at Lathi-tha's expense, as her eyes shot to Yathi-tha.
Hours later, the triplets had walked me to the taxi rank whilst jokingly teasing Lathi-tha and I. Playfully giving sideway looks to mock Mr X as well as any Mercedes-Benz that drove past. Anyhow, I got in the taxi and around 6 I arrived in Mitchell's Plain. I'd brought my T-dress of guilt with me and left my innocence on Lathi-tha's bed. The breeze inciting goosebumps to dance on my barely shivering skin as I began to jog home.
By the time I got to my street, darkness had already prevailed, leaving shadows dancing in the street as well as a shadowy, grey sky. My phone kept vibrating; texts from Jordan, Lathi-tha amongst other unimportant messages. Their sweet texts left my heart overwhelmed with mixed emotions. It was a juxtaposed feeling of both of joyful butterflies and angry crickets patrolling the landscape of my heart.
It was when I finally saw a black car stepping out of the line of the parked cars, which ran across my street, before it drove off my pavement. That's when the emotional war between my butterflies and crickets broke out and left me emotionally stale. I then jumped my small wall and got into my yard, slowly dawdling towards the door as though I were detective Nancy Drew. My outside lights were on, but the kitchen lights were. Suspicion stroked my hair. Anastasia wasn't home yet, or was she?
Inserting and turning my key, I then pushed the door open and walked into the house. Some light penetrating past the windows to light out the strong presence of silence that welcomed me, as the chilly breeze barged in too and and followed behind my footsteps. I brushed my cold hand over my goosebumps and flicked the light switch on.
My anxiety made me twirl a lock of hair around my fingers, my left hand scratching and stroking my cheek as my eyes froze on the packet of Lays on the floor. Beside them were a bunch of roses. Confusion ran down my spine as I crouched and picked up the halfway full packet, for my aunt would never leave her favourite packet unfinished, she was a Lays addict. Unless someone convinced her not to, judging by the string of roses I soon spotted near the stove, which led right to the passage.
Contemplating to follow the rosy pathway, my intuition told me to stop and text someone for advice, but my curiosity told my feet to keep going. In search of answer. I followed the roses, and found two intersecting lines, X's of roses just in the passage.
"Aunt Anne, or whatever your boyfriend's name is." my eyes wandered all over the dark passage, giving it a quick, my ears hanging in anticipation to any voice that would rise surface above the silence. Alas my voice only receded in the cold air, as I heard my breath grow louder.
"What a cheap surprise she's planned?" I felt my lungs squeeze out a tenuous laugh in search of relief amidst such tension. "I guess she'll always be bad when it comes to surprises.
I soon swung my bedroom door open, which defied my expectation of my aunt or her boyfriend jumping out of the dark and screaming, "Surprise." Curiosity had gotten the worst of me and that when I heard some quick thumping footsteps coming from the passage.
My bedroom curtains were swaying back and forth, blowing wildly but just after scuffling in the dark room and reaching for the curtains, I found a big hole embroidered within it.
"Oh Snap! Someone has broken in," I quietly whispered, failing to subdue my squeezing heart. Yet, before I could even let out a scream I felt a big hand covering my mouth, he's voice voice telling me to calm down as he pulled me backwards.
In the midst of that terrifying second I tried to scream again but my voice just couldn't penetrate through his dry hand. My foiled attempt to stamp on his foot yield no impact, until I painfully used my two elbows and painfully sunk them into his ribcage...
He just let out a painful moan as he tripped and leapt onto the nearby bed. My feet immediately carried me to the kitchen where I almost reached the the door, until he grabbed me and picked me up before taking me back to my room.
The fists I kept digging into his back proved innocuous until he threw me on the bed. I tried to to get up but my cheek was met with his flying backhand; not once, but twice. As I laid powerlessly on the comfy bed, his rhythmic footsteps rose as he walked to the window, before fading in the wind as he began laughing in a psycho-like manner.
Whoo-oo-shh! I finally heard and felt it as its windy voice whispered something in my ear that sent chills down my cheeks, aside from colonizing my nostrils and leaving my nose running. It was the dark dusky, early morning wind as it blew threw the hollow window behind me, past the curtains as well as the hair that hung around my face, and head.
Frostbites had now clung onto my fingertips despite the small blanket my captor had put around me. My phone vibrating in my pocket, shadows dancing on the walls, my wandering eyes failing to find useful clues in the dark as the thick rope that now tied me to the chair. A scary feeling slipped into my thoughts - "what if I die?"
As much as I missed Carl, I didn't want to die. That's when my tearful thoughts were pushed aside when the bedroom door swung open and caused my heartbeat to skyrocket. A fairly-tall, slim figure stepped through the doorframe as light in his background highlighted his silhouette.
"What do you want with me you fuckin' creep?" my voice shivered alongside my shoulders"
"O-ow! So now I' the bad guy?"
"So why am I tied to this chair then? Bound by these ropes?" I screamed at him, hoping for the wind to blow him away, but there he remained, peering at me from behind his mask.
"All because you broke my heart and tossed me away Ashleigh, and left me behind bars..." He then pitifully sniffled and exhaled as he walked closer, reached out to me and ran his finger down my cheek.
I held back my response, remembering what his hands were capable of as he wiped my tears on my cheek in a slow caress that ended on my chin. He pulled up my face and forced me to look up to him, making my lips mumble in fear. His phone rang and he brought it to his ears, as he hit the light switch on his way out.
"Hello Mr..." I heard him say as he walked through the passage. I had a few minutes to calmly gather my thoughts, until his laughter emerged from the passage, his footsteps getting louder by the second. Louder than my pounding heartbeat.
He walked right through the door. His orange overalls now a maroon suit. His mask still on as he squeezed open another packet of Lays. I admired his smart suit in a shaky voice as he lifted his balaclava and reviewed his ginger-dyed goatie beard. His shadow was cast above me as he chewed his chips loudly, much to my sore ears' irritation.
"You won't get away with this"
"Then maybe I should just get right to it and start you off with a passionate kiss... You thought you were clever back then, when you ended the beginning of my teaching career."
"I looked away in shame, remembering the day in my eleventh grade when cops flooded my Drama Class and caught him in the act, his hand all over my body as he tried to kiss me. What had started as an innocent game between him, my Student teacher for Dramatic Arts, and I had ended before we'd even reached a climax. It had all began when I'd begged him to give me extra lessons after class, the same lessons where we'd star as Romeo and Juliet, only for him to try and overturn my schooling hours into "our little role play" when he'd begun to take me aside during my other classes just so he could kiss me and touch me in many ways than once. He'd even blackmailed to fail me should I not have complied to his little Playful requests, until I got enough of it and asked Audrey's help in recording some proof on her phone, and taking it to the principal.
"Even sending me to prison for two whole years, two days after we'd planned to run away like Bonnie and Clyde. He then faced up to the ceiling before throwing his packet of Lays, before opening my closet and taking out a...
"I'm sorry, but you deserved it, you'd become obsessed and began acting in a compulsive manner towards me." I glance sideways to the bed, where the lays chips had landed all over my floral duvet. Until he threw a burgundy wedding dress on my bed.
"I can already picture how you look in it, Maybe we should just elope right away." He fondled his goatie and laughed like the delusional and devious young man that he was.
As he came, a hyena smile crept across his lips whilst I struggled to get out of the chair, playing ignorant to the marks and bruises that the rough rope was leaving etched all over my skin. He then released his hand from his chin before giving me a gentle trail of touches which ran down to my thighs as they uncomfortably increased my body temperature. He fingers poked my cold away as they poked their way around my waist and into my inner thighs.
"Get away from me, you freaking psycho!" Tears now welled within my shaking voice, as my fiery eyes now burned with a revolutionary zeal as my heavy heart leapt to my throat, leaving it tightened and lumpy. My rage was now breaking loose, all until he broke my wall of resistance with two backhands which left a strait of tears running across my numb, and swollen cheek.
"No baby girl... Please don't cry... I didn't mean to, I swear." his words were sincere, his tone quite apologetic.
So he untied me a bit, and freed my searing left arm in the process, before standing up and taking a quick smoke. Crouching back down to my level, he then demanded me to take off his balaclava mask. I then reached for his mask and pulled it upwards, slowly unveiling the bold blue words which were written around his forehead, "Will you marry me?"
"O-okay!"
"Damn Leigh! You've just made me feel good... Been planning for this moment ever since I was in prison, stuck with those fuckin' stupid men." The twinkle in his eyes died as he recalled his prison days"
That's when bipolar nature hid behind his eloquent smile as he lifted the burgundy dress from the bed, his eyes constantly jumping between the dress and me, his eyes slightly denoting his mischievous intentions.