What the Heart Desires

by Jaime Derelle

  "Jonathan," Theresa spoke in a broken voice the voice of someone who’s saying something he/she doesn’t want to but have made a decision to do it anyway.

  "Hmm," Jonathan wondered.

  "I… I don't know if I am ready for this," Theresa said weakly.

  Jonathan leaned back. He didn't know what to say. But being a mature man he was, he tried not to let his feelings influence him and took control.

  "We just have to go along with it and see where it takes us," Jonathan said as his way to stay rational, but in a seemingly poor effort. Theresa didn't say anything and she didn't seem to be eating her food anytime soon either.

  They spent each other's company way too awkwardly, worlds apart from how they spent the last four hours together.

  Jonathan didn't want it to get any more awkward than it already was, so he left the table to go to the kitchen. After he came out a few minutes later, the table he and Theresa sat on was empty left with the untouched food he brought Theresa and a twenty dollar bill.

  Theresa walked back home despite the cold wind ran through her skin. She felt miserably messed up.

  After she had got home, she went to her room and locked herself in. She then turned on her laptop to look for Gwen. Fortunately, she was online and after the talk, they had, doubly so. She stood up from her bed and put on her coat and went out to find Jonathan but he wasn’t at his shop and he wasn’t at his home also so after sifting through every neighborhood she finally came to rest at the park where the children played.

  After a while, a boy came to her and asked her to play with like before.

  Theresa still felt bad for leaving the Wright’s without even telling Jonathan and after the talk she had had with Gwen she needed to talk to him so involved with her guilty conscious that she had completely ignored how Jonathan must feel about her and she was no longer who cared more about her work than her personal health both emotionally and physically and who disregarded her friends and love and gave her work more importance over them.

  "Is something wrong, Miss?" He looked at her with such innocent look.

  Theresa thought it wouldn't be good if she gave the impression of being sad in front of the kids, so she lifted her chin up and smiled at the boy saying she was okay.

  One of the kids got down from the swing to let Theresa sit there. A little girl was sitting on the other swing to her right. She looked at those kids playing bubbly; they held no burden, and they took things as it happens.

  Theresa was quiet and stared at them for a moment when she realized she should be living her life like what those kids did.

  “Theresa,” A rough but familiar voice called out from behind her.

  It was Jonathan. He stood there; only a few steps away from her.

  “Jonathan.” Theresa was surprised as she turned around and saw him. Her heart was beating faster as he moved closer and closer to her. She knew this was what she wanted and she was ready to tell him that.

  “I have something to tell you,” Jonathan said confidently, and yet he seemed very uneasy.

  Theresa held up her hand to stop him. Seeing Jonathan and his befuddled expression at being interrupted so rudely all her dams burst and between her sobs, she told him about her talk with Gwen. She told him how Gwen had confessed that Robert had indeed been having an affair but what had been the most shocking was that he had been cheating on Theresa with none other than Gwen herself. She had lied about hiring the private investigator because without her, the company had taken a noticeable loss in the profits and she had wanted Theresa to come back. When Theresa had questioned Gwen in a cold voice that why was she telling her all this now, she had confessed that she had found out that he had been having an affair with yet another woman. She had turned her head aside after that as if she had been too ashamed to face her former friend. Though she hadn’t told Gwen but in her heart, she had already forgiven her because the same had happened to Theresa and she knew how it felt and besides the only person to blame here was Robert.

  After hearing all this, Jonathan said nothing. Instead, he took her hand and wiped her still flowing tears from her eyes. In that gesture was the acceptance she had wanted. Somehow this made Theresa cry harder.

  Jonathan then said that he had something to confess too. Theresa looked up at him through eyes bleary with crying.

  “I once had a wife.”

  This submission of the truth left her stunned and speechless. She wondered why he was telling her this now and what he hoped to accomplish by it but before she could say anything he continued;

  “We were a very happy married couple. She didn’t have much of a family and neither did I so we found each other and thought that we were made for each other things were good for a while but she changed this boring village life didn’t seem enough to her she started making regular trips to the city and said that she was selling her products over there. She used to make baskets and other household decorative items. I was naive at that time so I believed her. Then something happened. Her trips became more frequent and for longer periods of time. When I would ask her about it and she would say that the business is blooming or make some other excuse. Then, once she went and never came back. Later on, I learned that she had married some rich guy over there and left.”

  He seemed to gather himself for a moment as past memories revisited him but then he continued;

  “What I want to say is that I know what you’re feelings and what you’ve felt. I’m with you on that so my point here is that I don’t want to lose another loved one to the city…ah blast it”

  He got down on his knees and produced a plain gold ring body tensed up as if he expected a blow he asked her to marry him.

  Around them snow fell indicating the coming of Christmas, she said yes.

  Bonus Book - Rescued

  Rescued

  An Unlikely Dalliance

  A Valentine’s Day Romance Short Story

  Jaime Darelle

  Chapter 1

  This was the day that Cara had been dreading for the past several months. Every day that brought her closer to the lover’s holiday made her heart ache just a little bit more. She couldn’t remember when she was last single on Valentine’s Day. It was supposed to be all about flowers, chocolates, fancy restaurants, deep French kisses, sweating, panting, and passionate lovemaking. That’s what it had always been for her especially over the last five years. She’d spent those five Valentine’s with her bad boy boyfriend who liked to stay out late and come home angry and drunk. Shortly after they got engaged, Danny lost his job as a mechanic. He’d come in one too many times smelling like he’d rolled around in a Jack Daniel’s pool. And his glazed out eyes, red from all the powder he blew up his nose, probably didn’t help either.

  There was only so much that she could take, at least, that’s what Cara kept telling herself as the relationship became more and more mentally and soon enough physically abusive. She’d always known that he’d had a temper. If she left something in the oven for too long, he was quick to overreact, banging his fist on the kitchen table and staring daggers at her. She would apologize profusely after incidents like that but there was something in his eyes where he grew angry that scared her to the core. It was as if those flashes of anger had the power to transform him into a completely different person—a person that she couldn’t trust. She feared that one day she would have to confront that other side of Danny and unfortunately for her, she turned out to be correct.

  They’d come back from a bar one night, arm in arm, singing David Bowie songs and kissing and cooing as they walked down the busy city street. They both seemed to have finally gotten their lives back on track. When Danny finally became a Master mechanic and was able to earn a much higher salary, Cara would be able to quit the escorting game. After two years as a high-priced escort, she felt completely burned out. Like a lot of girls who went into this line of work, she’d made the decision after finding herself more that 55,000 in debt for her student loans. She’d loved her time at NYU but
, unfortunately, no matter how prestigious she thought her liberal arts degree was, the best job that she was able to get was as a Starbucks barista. Every day she felt like the life was being sucked out of her one fake smile and disingenuous greeting at a time. Of course, she should have known that being a theater major wouldn’t leave her with many options when graduation came around but no one had prepared her for just how hard it would be. There were times when she wondered whether she would have been better off staying in her Midwest hometown like so many of the people that she’d grown up with who'd’ settled down and started families after a couple of years of college.

  That life wasn‘t good enough for Cara. She’d always been a dreamer, someone who was willing to take chances to fulfill a dream or sometimes to feel a bit more alive, to feel the blood coursing through her veins. Her first time on stage in front of an audience she’d received an electric thrill. She’d never been able to forget that sensation and for better or for worse she’d been chasing it ever since.

  Cara flicked on the light in the bathroom and stared at herself in the mirror. She winced as she glimpsed the bags under her eyes and the weary expression in her eyes. In her run down state, she looked a lot older than 27 and she felt a lot older as well. Always on stage, always performing, she was beginning to lose track of who she was and what her purpose was in life.

  Or maybe the problem was that she’d never known the answers to those questions. Tough, brash, and quick-witted she oozed a New York swagger and confidence that intimidated many people. Her sweet green eyes and Midwestern manners would lead men to believe that they would easily be able to control. Almost all of the men she’d encountered over the last couple of year had tried to do precisely that.

  Cara stuffed her makeup back into her bag, gave herself one last good look, then sighed. She couldn’t stay in the bathroom all night and that wouldn’t have solved anything anyway. When she walked back into the hotel room, the client was reclining with a stack of pillows behind his back. Wearing nothing but boxers and a pair of black dress socks, the client’s hairy, bloated, middle-aged body was on full display. Cara frowned and looked away from him, knowing that part of the job was trying to find one thing that was tolerable or attractive about even the most unappealing of clients. After a couple years of fooling herself that sex work was no big deal, no different from any other type of labor, she was sure that it was finally time for her to move on. If she stayed in this line of work any longer, she was certain to go crazy. She had no doubts about that because she’d seen it happen to other girls in the business over the last couple of years. Growing up in a tough in a rust belt town, one of those places left destitute after the jobs went overseas, had taught her persistence and resilience. But no matter how tough she wanted to believe that she was, she knew that she was at the end of her rope.

  She wanted out but that was a lot easier said than done.

  “I’m not paying you to do your makeup," the client said.

  Cara had the urge to say something smart that would be sure to cut the fat, hairy man down to size. It would have felt good to finally express the contempt that she felt for men who paid for her service but she knew that would have been bad for business. So she played it cool, flashing her best fake smile and beginning to slip out of her clothes.

  The client was still reclining on the bed, one hand on the remote, the other clutching at the bulge in his boxer shorts. No longer captivated by the football game on the television, he turned his eyes towards Cara's slightly curvy body, looking her up and down with a lusty grin. He clenched even tighter on the bulge in his boxers.

  Cara shook her head and tried to laugh. This was such a ridiculous way to be spending her Valentine’s Day. As much as she tried not to think about him, she couldn’t help wondering what Danny was doing. Was he still with that bleached blond chick who claimed to only be a waitress? This girl is definitely turning tricks, Cara had said to herself the first and last time that she caught Danny and her stumbling out of The Cellar Bar on the Lower East Side together, pissy drunk in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon.

  “I don’t have all day," the client said, the impatience rising in his voice. "Get your ass over here."

  "Yes, daddy. But don’t be too rough with me. Okay?" Cara said in her girliest voice.

  That always got the cocks rock hard and palpitating, stimulating that primal desire in men to both protect and dominate her.

  "Don’t you worry about a thing, sweetie," the client said. "Daddy’s going to take real good care of you."

  Thirty minutes later, Cara walked out of the Regency Hotel on 54th and back out onto the street. Before hailing a cab, she checked her phone for messages. She definitely wasn’t in the mood to deal with any more clients but she wasn’t in a position to turn down money. There were way too many creditors beating down her door for her to justify spending a night curled up on the couch feeling sorry for herself when she could have been out working.

  No messages. She sighed, not knowing whether she was more disappointed or relieved. She stepped off the sidewalk and raised her hand for a cab. One quickly stopped for her.

  "Where to?" The driver asked with a thick Middle Eastern accent.

  Cara hesitated before answering, staring at her phone, hoping that maybe she would get a call from her agency. If they had no more clients for her, then it would make sense for her to just go home. It was Valentine’s Day. Most of her clients were older married men who would most likely be spending the evening pretending to care for the wives that they were no longer attracted to. On this day, she was of no value to them. On this day, they were forced to deal with the reality of their lives, the unhappiness, and boredom that stalked them, no matter how much money they made, or how much status they had attained.

  Cara was about to give the driver her home address on the Lower East Side, a long way away from the uber wealthy and luxurious surroundings of the Upper West side neighborhood that she found herself in. Every time she got the opportunity to rub shoulders and other body parts as well with members of New York’s wealthy and elite, a surge of adrenaline rushed through her body. At least, that’s how she felt at the beginning when everything was so new for her. When the bright lights and fancy restaurants and five-star hotels and exotic vacations still meant something to her, when she still believed that her clients were good decent men, for the most part, who simply needed a bit of warm, female companionship to help get their lives back on track. But that honeymoon period ended abruptly when she finally figured out, after more than a handful of unpleasant encounters, that the majority of her clients were predatory assholes that cared for nothing except satisfying their own primal desires.

  Cara’s phone beeped several times. As the screen lit up so did her face with a smile. So she would get to make some more money after all.

  Chapter 2

  Bradley paced around his luxurious Upper West Side apartment, which overlooked Central Park. It was a beautiful view, one that only the few and the privileged were ever be allowed to enjoy. On most nights staring down onto the city with a glass of scotch in his hand while listening to Beethoven’s 5th sonata would have enough to put a slightly arrogant smirk on his face while he remembered that he was both desired and brilliant, rich and handsome.

  But that night wasn't like most nights. It was the one night during the year when lovers came together and showed their affection openly and willingly to each other. When even in a city that could be as cold and stoic and self-centered as New York, people took the time show that really special person in their life just how much they meant to them. For many men of Bradley’s billionaire status would have thought his near obsession with the holiday was corny. Why didn’t he just grow up? Some of his old frat buddies would tell him. There was no need to be moping around your apartment all alone, wishing that you had someone that you wanted to spend time when you could just go out and hire as many hookers as you wanted.

  Bradley had always rejected those arguments. Paying a woman to spend tim
e with him was something that he would have never imagined doing. It seemed so far beneath him but one of his Yale Sigma Epsilon brothers had given the number of a very upscale and discreet service. This frat brother, a hedge fund manager at Goldman Sachs, told Bradley that politicians, foreign diplomats, and the wealthiest of the wealthy bachelors swore by this particular escort company.

  Bradley swirled the glass of scotch and took a quick sip. The liquor burned his tongue and tingled his body with pleasure. Buzzing from the alcohol, he pulled a black business card with gold lettering out of his wallet. He flipped the card over several times. His lips curled into a smile. He could feel his mojo coming back and he finally made the decision that he wouldn’t spend all night in his apartment feeling sorry for himself. The city was full of adventure and its arms and legs were thrown open, waiting to receive him.

  Thirty minutes later, Bradley slid across the backseat of his hired car. After another few sips of scotch, he closed his eyes and let his mind begin to wander. What would this girl be like? Would she be exactly what he’d asked for or would they assume that in the end he was a horny, lonely guy and he would accept any girl that they’d throw his away? He quickly shook off that negative thought but it didn’t square with what he’d heard about this particular agency. He wanted something very specific the girl that he would be spending time with that evening. For many months he’d fantasized about this sort of encounter for all those moments spent wondering and fantasizing, he never really imagined that it would come. But here it was, only minutes away. He could feel the butterflies welling up his stomach. Desperate for a bit of fresh air, he rolled down the window and stuck his neck out, hungrily sucking up the night breeze.

  This would be the night that he finally exorcised the demons that had been haunting him for years but he couldn’t help wondering what he would end up doing to himself or to the girl if everything went wrong. It terrified him to think about what level of wretched despair such an outcome would bring him to.