The sun rose behind the tall buildings casting a light into my eyes blinding me for a second. I refused to open my eyes. I craved a strong cup of coffee to face the day. It was Sunday morning and I rolled on my left and right side. Then I stretched my arms over my head, I exhaled. It felt great. The smell of the room different from my bedroom in New Jersey. The air filled with the smell of roses with a flavor of coffee. Ah, there’s the scent I hoped for. My eyes still closed and my brain shut off, for a moment I didn’t realize that I was sleeping in another bed. It should have occurred to me that I wouldn’t smell coffee if I hadn’t fixed it. I placed my hand on the sheets feeling around, and then I knew I wasn’t in my bed, and I wasn’t lying lazily on the futon in Chris’s loft, where the sounds of car horns and fire engines force me out of a peaceful sleep.
A sudden breeze passed over the room and I felt a coolness and it was then I opened my eyes.
Across from the bed set a dark blue wingback chair with a pattern of blue birds and flowers. In that comfortable chair sat a young woman about thirty more or less. She sat peering down at me with her dark brown eyes. Her auburn hair with natural highlights were the products of an exclusive salon that specialized in making unnatural colors appear natural.
Wearing a beautiful cream pant suit probably of silk and wool, it appeared so expensive that she could sleep and eat and drop coffee on it and the coffee would roll off, and nothing could affect its beauty and texture. At the time I wasn’t into designers and I had no need for them because I couldn’t afford their ridiculous prices. She made a science of crossing her legs. Her legs were aligned in a perfect vertical slant, no doubt from some finishing school where she spent her summers learning the manners of a well-bred girl. However, her smile reminded me of King Joffrey, the mad young king on the television movie, The Game of Thrones.
When she saw that I acknowledged her presence with my eyes wide and expressing surprise, she said, “This is indeed a first.” Her expression remained the same. “I’ve never known Brandon to have a woman in his bed and not catch him lying there beside him,” she said with her thin nose pointed upward and her posture perfect.
My mouth fell open and I felt I had to say something. “I’m just a friend,” I managed to squeeze that sentence out without my voice shaking. If I had said more she would have gain some leverage over me because she hadn’t revealed herself.
“Sure you are,” she said with a turned up smile leaning forward with her fist to her chin. She didn’t act like a wife, so I thought that she was one of his girlfriends checking on him. If I had been his wife, I probably would have pounced on me and pulled every strand of hair from my head. But that was me and I was crazy about Brandon.
After all it was eight o’clock in the morning and she appeared to be calm. That’s why I couldn’t imagine that she would be his wife. I thought that a wife would be hysterical if she had found a woman in her husband’s bed. I straightened up and gain my composure, “Who are you?” I inquired wondering whether I would appear in the Sunday Post’s headlines: Girlfriend of the Notorious Bad Boy, Brandon Charles, Caught Naked in his Hotel bed. But if the newspapers wanted to get down and dirty, the headlines could read: Tyler Burns, the girlfriend of Bad Boy Womanizer, Brandon Charles, Naked and Bound by her wrists in his bed.
My job prospects would be trashed and I could never meet my father’s gaze without tears flowing like an open faucet from the shame.
“I’m his wife. And who are you?” She said forcing a smile.
“I don’t believe you. No wife would be as calm as you,” I said pulling up the towel that had disappeared under the covers sometime during the night.
“I’m calm because it excites me to catch a woman in Brandon’s bed. I know he’s never serious about them, and besides, I can blackmail him into giving me whatever I want to keep her name out of the papers.” She tilted her head in a satisfactory manner and a large smile broke showing perfect white teeth. This was a game. Looking at her wide mouth I thought—shark.
I didn’t want to play the sick game that this rich bitch had devised to keep their sex life interesting.
“I told you that I was only a friend and as you can well see Brandon is not with me.” Her eyes darkened and her brow furrowed.
“I can see that, but it will not prevent me from getting what I want from him. As you slept so soundly I took pictures of you lying there. All I have to do is Photoshop Brandon’s picture in the nude and there you have it. He’s lying in the bed next to you. Now if I were you, I would get out of here.” She stood and picked up her expensive red alligator bag, slung it over her shoulder and marched to the door.
Before she could reach for the handle, the door opened and Brandon stood in surprise with a suite bag and behind him a man dressed in a gray and gold hotel uniform carrying boxes of women’s shoes and a suitcase.
Brandon’s eyes small slits, his mouth turned downward. “What do you want Angela?” He passed in front of her and laid the items on the sofa and directed the man to place the rest in the closet. Brandon gave him a tip and he rushed from the room.
Angela walked in his direction and passed her hand across his face. “Why I came for my husband,” she said with a forced smile.
“This is not the time,” Brandon said brushing Angela’s hand away.
She opened one shoe box, examined the shoe and said, “Are these for me?” She met Brandon’s eyes. “If so, they are the wrong size.” And she dropped the shoe on the floor.
“Then what time is a good time to discuss this latest betrayal with my husband? Do I have to make an appointment?” she said looking at me with contempt. Her hands clinched tightly.
I listened and decided that I couldn’t take anymore. This was a marriage made in hell and I didn’t want to be in the middle of it. “If you give me a minute to get dress, I’ll be out of your way,” I said to Angela. “This is not my business.”
“Oh, but it is,” she said standing at the foot of the bed. “I find a little cunt in my bed…”
Brandon interrupted, “Don’t call Tyler that word, and this has never been your bed.”
I wrapped the towel around me tightly and stepped out. Brandon’s eyes followed me in a hungry sex-starved gaze. Angela’s eyes followed his eyes. “So this is the one you like. I thought it was the others. I was just wasting my time coming between you and them. Where did you hide her for five years?”
I closed the door and tried to listen. Brandon cursed and said, “I haven’t been hiding her anywhere. She’s just another girl I picked up.” I felt shitty. I didn’t want to hear that I was just another fuck for him.
Turning on the shower and stepping in, I stayed under the warmth of the water until it became quiet. Then I slipped on my black dress, and my damp panties, I left hanging on the shower door. Not hearing voices, I walked slowly out of the bathroom to the bedroom to retrieve my dignity. I caught sight of Brandon strutting from the kitchen with two cups of coffee.
“Here princess you need this. And I need a drink.” He walked to the bar and poured himself a shot of bourbon and then another and another. I stared at him. His drinking five years ago was bad but now it was worse.
“What’s wrong with you and your wife?” I asked him. He opened his mouth to say something and I cut him off. “No. On second thought, I don’t want to know. I’m getting out of your crazy life.”
“I’m crazy because of you,” he said finishing off the bourbon and pouring another. He came closer to me and his body touched mine. I could feel his manhood rise and I pulled away.
“Don’t put that on me,” I said trying to put distance between us. I wanted him and needed him too bad. I needed the heat of his embrace and for him to tell me that he loved me.
“I asked you to wait for me, and you left,” he said.
“You said you were coming back,” I shouted. I remained in that place until after your marriage, until after you fucked Angela that night, and then I came to my senses and took my stupid ass home.”
“I left Angela on our honeymoon night and rushed to be with you. I told her the night of our honeymoon that it was a mistake and we should get an annulment. I know this sounds terrible, but you don’t know the circumstances under which we both agreed to this marriage.”
“No, I don’t and I don’t think it concerns me anymore. That is your burden to bear. Telling me makes me more ashamed of myself if that’s possible,” I said trying not to accept responsibility for something that I had a party to as well.
Brandon held my face in his hands, “You have nothing to be ashamed of princess.” I could do nothing but ease out a small smile with tears following. He kissed each tear traveling straight to my mouth.
“There is nothing you can say,” I said. I needed him to say something to change my mind. Make me believe him.
“My marriage wasn’t a marriage. It was an arrangement between two young spoiled rich kids plotting to get their inheritance, thinking that wealth would solve all our problems. I don’t want to go into details but if you ask me, I will tell you everything.”
“Everything?” I questioned. His face changed. His glance wandered. I knew he was holding on to the biggest secret of all. I wondered what his mother meant when she caught us in bed and asked Brandon if he told me. “I don’t think I’m ready for this. I have to get my mind ready for my first day on the job. I need time,” I admitted.
I headed for the door and he stopped me. “Give me a moment to explain to you what happened that Saturday night.” I glanced at his arm holding mine.
“I’m waiting for your explanation,” I said hoping to believe and forgive him.
“When I discovered that you had gone home and didn’t want to talk to me, I was crazy. Angela found me with my mother’s direction and insistence. I laid out drunk on the floor for days. I hadn’t eaten or taking a bath. I was a mess. She became angry and jealous, then she encouraged me to drink some more. I stayed drunk for months. We weren’t going to consummate the marriage.” He paused long and then he said. “But in my drunken haze we slept together. We had a contract and she wouldn’t let me out of it.”
“I’m not proud of this. I didn’t think my life would get this complicated and I didn’t think I would meet a girl and fall in love with her. I never knew I could love anyone the way I love you and still be in love.”
I held my breath when he said that they were not supposed to consummate the marriage. I exhaled when he said they did. I couldn’t breathe when he said that he loved me. He put his arms around me and I became limp. Not because I was so attracted to him, which I was, but because at that moment I hated him. I hated him because I loved him so much and to hear that he slept with Angela. I fell hard into the softness of Brandon’s arms. I could have stayed in my fairytale world until someone woke me.
Everything in the room was circling and my feet were unsteady. “Sit down,” Brandon said and before I could open my mouth, he picked me up in his strong arms and placed me on the bed. “I know what’s wrong, you haven’t eaten. Let me call for breakfast.”
“No.” I protested. “I have something to do today.”
“I know you have a job,” Brandon said sitting down on the edge of the bed. “You don’t have to work. I’ll take care of you. I will get you an apartment…”
“Wait a minute. You’re proposing that I become your mistress?”
“No. That’s not what I want,” he said.
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know but I do know that I want you with me under any circumstances. I will get a divorce from Angela but it takes time. When I try to leave her she tells my family that she’s pregnant.”
“Well is she?”
“If she is it’s not for me. I haven’t slept with her in five years.”
“Oh god, I can’t handle this. This is not the kind of life I wished for myself. Sneaking around to be with someone I love.”
“You said that you love me, and that you would be with me even if I married,” he said.
“That was five years ago, I’m a woman now. Of course I love you, is there any doubt? But I’m not going to spend my life dodging Angela. She will never give you any peace or a divorce,” I shouted. I stepped from the bed. My words must have rang true and he recognized the truth.
“I can’t stop you from going on with your life and I won’t prevent you from having a life. I’m the one to blame. I admit, I can’t see a future for us as long as Angela is in the picture,” Brandon said. His eyes lowered and turned to a dark hue of blue. He stared through me as if he was somewhere far away. “I won’t bother you again,” he said to me.
He had given up without a fight. I wanted him to say that he would never give in to Angela and that we would be together one day. He stood watching me walk through the door. I was in a daze and when I arrived in the lobby Brandon’s limo parked was parked in front of his hotel.
I stood in line waiting for a cab. My mind was cloudy and it was raining. I saw and heard only the raindrops.
“Tyler. Tyler. I’ll take you home.” Spencer’s hand set on my shoulder. “Come with me.” I followed him like a sheep. Not knowing or caring about anything. Brandon had let me slip out of his hands once again. I wanted to be in his arms but what was I to do? He had made me a proposition that I couldn’t agree to. Unlike Angela, sophistication, deceit and blackmail didn’t appeal to me.
I had no training on how to be a mistress. I would probably fuck that up. I had no training on how to act when dodging the wife. I had no training on how to sleep with a man and not give my complete heart to him.
Without saying a word to Spencer of where I was going, he stopped in front of Chris’s loft. “Anything I can do?” Spencer said reaching for my hand helping me out of the limo.
“Thank you. You have done enough,” I said regretting the acid mixed in with my words. It wasn’t Spencer’s fault. It was my fault and it was Brandon’s.
We’ve managed to fuck up our own young lives and we had years to go. Who knows how much damage we can do to each other? I wondered.